e I cannot sleep,
but I walk then simply in search of fatigue. Pleasure, Lucia! there can
be none for me now until you belong to me. As for my life, it is a
hard-working and as absolutely without relief as your own--absolutely."

She was silent.

"You don't believe me?"

"Of course I believe you," she answered, impulsively, putting her white
hand suddenly into mine. "If you say so, but--"

"But what?"

She hesitated and coloured. I had not the least idea of what she was
really going to say. I thought the "but" led to some condition more or
less contradictory to her expression of belief in me, or, perhaps, to
some statement she had heard, or something that she had thought. And I
pressed her.

"But what?" I repeated.

"I was going to say, I have no wish to make your life harder than it
is. I do not want our engagement to impose impossible laws upon you,
nor do I set up an imaginary standard for you. You have your honour and
your own self-respect, and I know I shall always be satisfied with the
standard you raise for yourself."

The voice was very soft, and her touch and eyes caressing. She had not
said in the least what I had expected, and she had touched, as she
always did in me, the best springs in my thoughts. Her own pride, and
her unquestioning assumption of mine, stung all that I had.

"Even you, Lucia, could not have a higher!" I answered on the impulse.

She smiled.

"That is exactly what I say," she said, and the smile went on into a
slight laugh. "When will you come again to sit for Hyacinthus?"

"To-morrow, at the same time! Will that do?"

"Yes. It's immensely good of you. How can I thank you?"

I looked down at the red lips, at the delightful neck and shoulders,
for a second in silence, then I pressed her hand, whistled to Nous, and
went out. As soon as I had passed down the stairs and reached the
street the bitter rush of feelings that the sight of this girl roused
in me, and that her actual presence held in check, swept over me
unrestrained. Why had I left her like that? I asked myself savagely.
Why had I not drawn her into my arms and kissed her till all that soft
delicate face was one flame of scarlet? Then a contemptuous smile came
with the answering thought. What use were mere empty kisses if she gave
me a thousand! This state of things could not go on. The life that I
led seemed growing more and more unendurable week by week. It was a
life of perpetual restraint, of refusal to every w