it if I hadn't."

She gave the laugh which coolly put him from her. "Couldn't you? Poor
George!" She balanced from her heels to her toes and back again, with
steadying movements of her arms, so that she was like a bird refusing to
take flight. "I don't see things plainly like that," she murmured. "It's
like a black ball going round and round with sparks inside, and me; and
the blackness and the sparks are feelings and thoughts, and things that
have happened and are going to happen, all mixing themselves up with the
me in the middle. George, do you feel how strange it is? I can't
explain, but here we are on the moor, with the sky above us, and the
earth underneath--and why? But I'm really rolling over and over in the
black ball, and I can't stop and I can't go on. I'm just inside."

"I know," he said. "It's all mixed. It's--" He kicked a heather-bush.
"You want a thing and you don't want it--I don't know."

"I always know what I want," she said, and into her thoughtfulness there
crept the personal taint. "I want every one to adore me. Good-night,
George. I wonder if we shall ever meet again!"

In the garden, with her hands folded on her knee, Helen was sitting
meekly on a stool under the poplars and watching the swaying of the
tree-tops.

"The young nun at prayer," Miriam said. "I thought you came back to be
with Notya."

"She seemed not to want me."

"Then you sacrificed me for nothing. That's just like you."

"How?"

"By throwing me into the alluring company of that young man. If I love
him and he doesn't love me, well, you've blighted my life. And if he
loves me and I don't love him--"

"You are always talking about love," Helen said with an accent of
distaste.

"I know it's not the sort of thing a young virgin should be interested
in; but after all, what else can be so interesting to the Y. V.?"

"But you spoil it."

"I don't. Do you mind if I put my head on your knee? No, I'm not
comfortable. That's better. It's you who spoil it with being sentimental
and one-love-one-life-ish. Now for me it's a game that nymphs and
goddesses might play at."

"But you can't play it alone," said Helen, troubled.

"No, that's the fun of it." She smiled against Helen's dress. "I wonder
if my young man is at home yet. And there's only a cold supper for him!
Dear, dear, dear!"

With her apparent obtuseness, Helen said, "It won't matter so much in
the summertime."

"Ah, that's a comfort," Miriam said, and rolled he