ious: would the strange aversion to his touch return? He was
kissing her palms, pressing them to his face. She drew a long, deep
sigh: it did not come back. On the contrary, the touch of his hand was
pleasant to her. He stroked her cheek, pushed back a loose piece of
hair from her forehead; and, as he did this, she was aware of the old
sense of well-being. Beneath his hand, irksome thoughts fell away.
Backwards and forwards it travelled, as gently as though she were a
sick person. And, little by little, so gradually that, at first, she
herself was not conscious of them, other wishes came to life in her
again. She began to desire more than mere peace. The craving came over
her to forget her self-torturings, and to forget them in a dizzy whirl.
Reaching up, she put her arms round his neck, and drew him down. He
kissed her eyelids. At this she opened her eyes, enveloping him in a
look he had learnt to know well. For a second he sustained it: his life
was concentrated in the liquid fire of these eyes, in these eager
parted lips. She pressed them to his, and he felt a smart, like a bee's
sting.

With a jerk, he thrust her arms away, and rose to his feet; to keep his
balance he was obliged to grasp the back of a chair. Taking out his
handkerchief, he pressed it to his lip.

"Maurice!"

"It's late ... I must go ... I must work, I tell you." He stood staring
at the drop of blood on his handkerchief.

"Maurice!"

He looked round him in a confused way; he was strangely angry, and
hasty to no purpose. "Won't you ... then you won't come out with me?"

"Maurice!" The word was a cry.

"Oh, it's foolish! You don't know what you're doing." He had found his
coat, and was putting it on, with unsure hands. "Then, if ... this
evening, then! As usual. I'll come as usual."

The door shut behind him; a minute later, the street-door banged. At
the sound Louise seemed to waken. Starting up in bed, she threw a wild
look round the empty room; then, turned on her face, and bit a hole in
the linen of the pillow.

Maurice worked that afternoon as though his future was conditioned by
the number of hours he could practise before evening. Throughout these
three days, indeed, his zeal had been unabating. He would never have
yielded so calmly to the morbid fashion in which she had cooped herself
up, had not the knowledge that his time was his own again, been
something of a relief to him. Yes, at first, relief was the word for
what he felt. Fo