You come between us at your peril."

Lennan kept silence for a moment, then he said quietly:

"Can one come between two people who have ceased to have anything in
common?"

The veins in Cramier's forehead were swollen, his face and neck had grown
crimson. And Lennan thought with strange elation: Now he's going to hit
me! He could hardly keep his hands from shooting out and seizing in
advance that great strong neck. If he could strangle, and have done with
him!

But, quite suddenly, Cramier turned on his heel. "I have warned you," he
said, and went.

Lennan took a long breath. So! That was over, and he knew where he was.
If Cramier had struck out, he would surely have seized his neck and held
on till life was gone. Nothing should have shaken him off. In fancy he
could see himself swaying, writhing, reeling, battered about by those
heavy fists, but always with his hands on the thick neck, squeezing out
its life. He could feel, absolutely feel, the last reel and stagger of
that great bulk crashing down, dragging him with it, till it lay
upturned, still. He covered his eyes with his hands. . . . Thank God!
The fellow had not hit out!

He went to the door, opened it, and stood leaning against the door-post.
All was still and drowsy out there in that quiet backwater of a street.
Not a soul in sight! How still, for London! Only the birds. In a
neighbouring studio someone was playing Chopin. Queer! He had almost
forgotten there was such a thing as Chopin. A mazurka! Spinning like
some top thing, round and round--weird little tune! . . . Well, and what
now? Only one thing certain. Sooner give up life than give her up! Far
sooner! Love her, achieve her--or give up everything, and drown to that
tune going on and on, that little dancing dirge of summer!

XVI

At her cottage Olive stood often by the river.

What lay beneath all that bright water--what strange, deep, swaying, life
so far below the ruffling of wind, and the shadows of the willow trees?
Was love down there, too? Love between sentient things, where it was
almost dark; or had all passion climbed up to rustle with the reeds, and
float with the water-flowers in the sunlight? Was there colour? Or had
colour been drowned? No scent and no music; but movement there would be,
for all the dim groping things bending one way to the current--movement,
no less than in the aspen-leaves, never quite still, and the winged
droves of the clouds. And