sign was the nervous flood of
talk that poured from his lips--as though they had been sealed and
stopped for years. But Louise urged him on; what he had first felt
dimly, he soon knew for certain: that she was never tired of learning
how much he loved her, how he had hoped, and ventured, and despaired,
and how he had been prepared to lose her, up to the very last day. She
also made him describe to her more than once how he had first seen her:
his indelible impression of her as she played; her appearance at his
side in the concert-hall; how he had followed her out and looked for
her, and had vainly tried to learn who she was.

"I stood quite close to you, you say, Maurice? Perhaps I even looked at
you. How strange things are!"

Still, the interest she displayed was of a wholly passive kind; she
took no part herself in this building up of the past. She left it to
him, just as she left all that called for firmness or decision, in this
new phase of her life. The chief step taken, it seemed as if no further
initiative were left in her; she let herself be loved, waited for
everything to come from him, was without will or wish. He had to ask no
self-assertion of her now, no impulsive resolutions. Over all she did,
lay a subtle languor; and her abandon was absolute--he heard it in the
very way she said his name.

In the first riotous joy of possession, Maurice had been conscious of
the change in her as of something inexpressibly sweet and tender,
implying a boundless faith in him. But, before long, it made him
uneasy. He had imagined several things as likely to happen; had
imagined her the cooler and wiser of the two, checking him and chiding
him for his over-devotion; had imagined even moments of self-reproach,
on her part, when she came to think over what she had done. What he had
not imagined was the wordless, unthinking fashion in which she gave
herself into his hands. The very expression of her face altered in
these days: the somewhat defiant, bitter lines he had so loved in it,
and behind which she had screened herself, were smoothed out; the lips
seemed to meet differently, were sweeter, even tremulous; the eyes were
more veiled, far less sure of themselves. He did not admit to himself
how difficult she made things for him. Strengthened, from the first, by
his good resolutions, he was determined not to let himself be carried
off his feet. But it would have been easier for him to stand firm, had
she met him in almost a