it to my
lips. I did not know the meaning of her tears. I was triumphant. She
sobbed, not loudly or violently, but with a pitiful gentleness.

"Why do you cry so, darling?" I whispered.

She turned her face to me; the tears were running down her cheeks. "Why
do I cry?" she moaned softly. "Because I'm wicked--I suppose I'm
wicked--and so foolish. And--and you are good, and noble, and--and
you'll be great. And"--the sobs choked her voice, and she turned her
face half away--"and I'm old, Augustin."

I could not enter into her mood; joy pervaded me; but neither did I
scorn her nor grow impatient. I perceived dimly that she struggled with
a conflict of emotions beyond my understanding. Words were unsafe,
likely to be wrong, to make worse what they sought to cure. I caressed
her, but trusted my tongue no further than to murmur endearments. She
grew calmer, sat up, and dried her eyes.

"But it's so absurd," she protested. "Augustin, lots of boys are just as
absurd as you; but was any woman ever as absurd as I am?"

"Why do you call it absurd?"

"Oh, because, because"--she moved near me suddenly--"because, although
I've tried so hard, I can't feel it the least absurd. I do love you."

Here was her prepossession all the while--that the thing would seem
absurd, not that there was sin in it. I can see now why her mind fixed
on this point; she was, in truth, speaking not to me who was there by
her, me as I was, but to the man who should be; she pleaded not only
with herself, but with my future self, praying the mature man to think
of her with tenderness and not with a laugh, interceding with what
should one day be my memory of her. Ah, my dear, that prayer of yours is
answered! I do not laugh as I write. At you I could never have laughed;
and if I set out to force a laugh even at myself I fall to thinking of
what you were, and again I do not laugh. Then what is it that the world
outside must have laughed with a very self-conscious wisdom? Its
laughter was nothing to us then, and to-day is to me as nothing. Is it
not always ready to weep at a farce and laugh at a tragedy?

"But you've nobody else," she went on softly. "I shouldn't have dared if
you'd had anybody else. Long ago--do you remember?--you had nobody, and
you liked me to kiss you. I believe I began to love you then; I mean I
began to think how much some woman would love you some day. But I
didn't think I should be the woman. Oh, don't look at me so hard, or--or
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