aw you," continued Maurice, with the same show of
boldness--"you, of course, will not remember it. It was one evening in
Schwarz's room--in April--months ago. And since then, I ... well ...
I----"

She was gazing at him now, in surprise. She remembered at this minute,
how once before, that day, his manner of saying some simple thing had
affected her disagreeably. Then, she had eluded the matter with an
indifferent word; now, she was not in a mood to do this, or in a mood
to show leniency. She was dispirited, at war with herself, and she
welcomed the excuse to vent her own bitterness on another.

"And since then--well?"

"Since then ..." He hesitated, and gave a nervous laugh at his own
daring. "Since then ... well, I have thought about you more than--than
is good for my peace of mind."

For a moment amazement kept her silent; then she, too, laughed, and the
walls of the dark houses they were passing seemed to the young man to
re-echo the sound.

"Your peace of mind!"

She repeated the words after him, with such an ironical emphasis that
his unreflected courage curled and shrivelled. He wished the ground had
swallowed him up before he had said them. For, as they fell from her
lips, the audacity he had been guilty of, and the absurdity that was
latent in the words themselves, struck him in the face like pellets of
hail.

"Your peace of mind! What has your peace of mind to do with me?" she
cried, growing extravagantly angry. "I never saw you in my life till
to-day; I may never see you again, and it is all the same to me whether
I do or not.--Oh, my own peace of mind, as you call it, is quite hard
enough to take care of, without having a stranger's thrown at me! What
do you mean by making me responsible for it! I have never done anything
to you."

All the foolish castles Maurice had built came tumbling about his cars.
He grew pale and did not venture to look at her.

"Make you responsible! Oh, how can you misunderstand me so cruelly!"

His consternation was so palpable that it touched her in spite of
herself. Her face had been as naively miserable as a child's, now it
softened, and she spoke more kindly.

"Don't mind what I say. To-night I am tired ... have a headache ...
anything you like."

A wave of compassion drowned his petty feelings of injury, and his
sympathy found vent in a few inadequate words.

"Help me?--you?" She laughed, in an unhappy way. "To help, one must
understand, and you couldn't under