eally mean to take myself too seriously; but all my life I have
been forced to worry about things, and to turn them over."

"It's unhealthy always to be looking into yourself. Let things go more,
and they'll carry you with them."

He took her hands. "What wise-sounding words! And I'm in the wrong, I
know, as usual. But, in this case, it's impossible not to worry. What
happened this evening seems a trifle to you, and no doubt would to
every one else, too. But I had made a kind of touchstone of it; it was
to help to decide the future--that hideously uncertain future of ours!
I believe now, as far as I'm concerned, I don't care whether I ever
come to anything or not. Of course, I should rather have been a
success--we all would!--but caring for you has swallowed up the
ridiculous notions I once had. For your sake--it's you I torment myself
about. WHAT is to become of us?"

"If that's all, Maurice! Something will turn up, I'm sure it will. Have
a little patience, and faith in luck ... or fate ... or whatever you
like to call it."

"That's a woman's way of looking at things."

He was conscious of speaking somewhat unkindly; but he was hurt by her
lack of sympathy. Instead, however, of smoothing things over, he was
impelled, by an unconquerable impulse, to disclose himself still
further. "Besides, that's not all," he said, and avoided her eyes.
"There's something else, and I may just as well make a clean breast of
it. It's not only that the future is every bit as shadowy to-night as
it has always been: I haven't advanced it by an inch. But I feel
to-night that if I could have been what I once hoped to be--no, how
shall I put it? You know, dear, from the very beginning there has been
something wrong, a kind of barrier between us hasn't there? How often
I've tried to find out what it is! Well, to-night I seem to know. If I
were not such an out-and-out mediocrity, if I had really been able to
achieve something, you would care for me--yes, that's it!--as you can't
possibly care now. You would have to; you wouldn't be able to help
yourself."

Her first impulsive denial died on her lips; as he continued to speak,
she seemed to feel in his words an intention to wound her, or, at
least, to accuse her of want of love. When she spoke, it was in a cool
voice, as though she were on her guard against being touched too deeply.

"That has nothing whatever to do with it," she said. "It's you
yourself, Maurice, I care for--not what you