tell me. If it was anything I might have seen, you
were a beast not to come back for me, d'you hear?"

Peter turned and stared at her, but she knew as he looked that he hardly
saw her. Her tone changed, and she made a little movement with her hand,
"Tell me, Peter," she said again.

"I've seen," said Peter slowly, "a bigger thing than I thought the world
could hold, I've seen something so wonderful, Julie, that it hurt--oh,
more than I can say. I've seen Love, Julie."

She could not help it. It was a foolish thing to say just then, she knew,
but it came out. "Oh, Peter," she said, "did you have to leave me to see
that?"

"Leave you?" he questioned, and for a moment so lost in his thought was
he that he did not understand what she meant. Then it dawned on him, and
he smiled. He did not see as he stood there, the clumsy Peter, how the
two were related. So he smiled, and he came over to her, and took her
hand, and sat on the bed, his eyes still full of light. "Oh, you've
nothing to do with it," he said. "It's far bigger than you or I, Julie.
Our love is like a candle held up to the sun beside it. Our love wants
something, doesn't it? It burns, it--it intoxicates, Julie. But this love
waits, _waits_, do you understand? It asks nothing; it gives, it suffices
all. Year after year it just waits, Julie, waits for anyone, waits for
everyone. And you can spurn it, spit on it, crucify it, and it is still
there when you--need, Julie." And Peter leaned forward, and buried his
face in her little hand.

Julie heard him through, and it was well that before the end he did not
see her eyes. Then she moved her other hand which held the half-burnt
cigarette and dropped the smoking end (so that it made a little hiss)
into her teacup on the glass-topped table, and brought her hand back, and
caressed his hair as he lay bent forward there. "Dear old Peter," she
said tenderly, "how he thinks things! And when you saw this--this love,
Peter, how did you feel?"

He did not answer for a minute, and when he did he did not raise his
head. "Oh, I don't know, Julie," he said. "It went through and through
me. It was like a big sea, and it flooded me away. It filled me. I seemed
to drink it in at every pore. I felt satisfied just to be there."

"And then you came back to Julie, eh, Peter?" she questioned.

"Why, of course," he said, sitting up with a smile. "Why not?" He gave a
little laugh. "Why, Julie," he said, "I never thought of that before