gness. Out in the drive, where the purple trees
were washed by the February dusk, he stood perplexed at himself because
in a wild kiss he had not crushed Pauline to his heart. Had it been from
some scruple of honor in case her father and mother should not
countenance his love? Had it sprung out of some impulse to postpone for
a while a joy that must be the sharpest he would ever know? Or was it
that in the past he had often kissed too lightly, so that now, when he
really loved, he could not imagine the kiss unpassionate and fierce that
would seal her immortally to love, yet leave her still a child?

As he paused in that golden February dusk, Guy rejoiced he had told his
love in such an awe of her girlhood; and when from the nursery window
Pauline blew one kiss and vanished like a fay at mortal trespassing, he
floated homeward upon the airy salute, weighing no more than a seed of
dandelion to his own sense of being. Upon his way he observed nothing,
neither passer-by nor carts in the muddy roads. As he crossed the bridge
the roar of the water into the mill-pond was inaudible, nor did he hear
his melodious garden ways. And when Miss Peasey came to his room with
the lamp, he could not realize for a moment who she was or what she was
talking about. The hour or two before dinner went by as one tranced
minute; in a dream he went down to dinner; in a dream he began to carve;
in a dream the knife remained motionless in the joint, so that Miss
Peasey coming to inquire after his appetite thought it was stuck in a
skewer. Up-stairs in the library again, he dreamed the evening away; and
when the lamp hummed slowly and oilily to extinction he still sat on,
till at last the fire perished, and from complete darkness he roused
himself and went to bed.

Guy was under the cloud of a reaction when he rang the Rectory bell on
the morning after. The door looked less amicable, and the dragon-headed
knocker stared balefully while he was waiting to be let in. He wondered
for whom of the family he ought to ask, but Mrs. Grey came nervously
into the hall and invited him into the drawing-room.

"Pauline has gone over to Fairfield," she began in jerky sentences.
"Charming ... yes, charming, you came this morning."

The sun had not yet reached the oriel of the drawing-room, that with
shadows and fragrance was welcoming Guy where he sat in a winged
arm-chair beside the fire. Time was seeming to celebrate the
momentousness of his visit by standing