ed arms. I would hold you with them all, and never let you go."

"But, dearest, one would think I wanted to go. Do you really believe if
I had my own way, I should be anywhere but here with you?"

"No.--I don't know.--How should I know?"

"Doubts?--beloved!"

"No, no, not doubts. It's only--oh, I don't know what it is. If you
could always be with me, Maurice, they wouldn't come. For what I never
meant to happen HAS happened. I have grown to care too much--far too
much. I want you, I need you, at every moment of the day. I want you
never to be out of my sight."

Maurice held her at arm's length, and looked at her. "You can say
that--at last!" And drawing her to him: "Patience, darling. Just a
little patience. Some day you will never be alone again."

"I do have patience, Maurice. But let me be patient in my own way. For
I'm not like you. I have no room in me now for other things. I can't
think of anything else. If I had my way, we should shut ourselves up
alone, and live only for each other. Not share it, not make it just a
part of what we do."

"But man can't live on nectar and honey alone. It wouldn't be life."

"It wouldn't be life, no. It would be more than life."

Some of the evening shadows seemed to invade her face. Her expression
was childishly pathetic. He drew her to his knee.

"I should like to see you happier, Louise--yes, yes, I know!--but I
mean perfectly happy, as you were sometimes at Rochlitz. Since we came
back, it has never been just the right thing--say what you like."

"If only we had never come back!"

"If you still think so, darling, when I've finished here, we'll go away
at once. In the meantime, patience."

"Oh, I don't mean to be unreasonable!" But her head was on his
shoulder, his arms were round her; and in this position, nothing
mattered greatly to her.

Patience?--yes, there was need for him to exhort her to patience. It
ate already into her soul as iron bands eat into flesh. The greater
part of her life was now spent in practising it. And for sheer loathing
of it, she turned over, on waking, and kept her eyes closed, in an
attempt to prolong the night. For the day stretched empty before her;
the hours passed, one by one, like grey-veiled ghosts. Yet not for a
moment had she harboured his idea of regular occupation; she knew
herself too well for that. In the fever into which her blood had worked
itself she could settle to nothing: her attention was centred wholly in
herself;