you are!"

She moved her eyes to watch the leaves twinkling in front of the
lime-kiln.

"I must go," she said.

"'I must go'!" he mocked. "You are no sooner here than--' I must go '!"

"I can't be with you all the time. You don't care for appearances, so I
have to.".

"Appearances are nothing. This is the only real thing in the universe."

"But I really must go." She lifted her wilful chin and sat still. They
stared at each other in the silence of lovers. Though the girl's face
was without a line, she was more skilled in the play of love than he.

"Indeed I must go. Your eyes are half shut, like a gentian."

"When you are living intensely you don't look at the world through
wide-open eyes," said Maurice. "I never let myself go before. Repression
has been the law of my life. Think of it! In a long life-time I have
loved but two persons--the woman I told you of, and you. Twenty years
ago I found out what life meant. For the first time, I knew! But I was
already married. I took that beautiful love by the throat and choked it
down. Afterwards, when I was free, the woman I first loved was married.
How long I have had to wait for you to bloom, lotos flower! This is
living! All the other years were preparation."

"Do you never see her?" inquired the girl.

"Who? That first one? I have avoided her."

"She loved you?"

"With the blameless passion that we both at first thought was the most
perfect friendship."

"Wouldn't you marry her now if she were free?"

"No. It is ended. We have grown apart in renunciation for twenty years.
I am not one that changes easily, you see. You have taken what I could
not withhold from you, and it is yours. I am in your power."

They heard a great steamer blowing upon the strait. Its voice
reverberated through the woods. The girl's beautiful face was full of a
tender wistfulness, half maternal. Neither jealousy nor pique
marred its exquisite sympathy. It was such an expression as an untamed
wood-nymph might have worn, contemplating the life of man.

"Don't be sad," she breathed.

Vague terror shot through Maurice's gaze.

"That is a strange thing for you to say to me, Lily. Is it all you can
say--when I love you so?"

"I was thinking of the other woman. Did she suffer?"

"At any rate, she has the whole world now--beauty, talent, wealth,
social prestige. She is one of the most successful women in this
country."

"Do I know her name?"

"Quite well. She has been a person of