o young," she said at length.

"Twenty-four and twenty-three--"

"Not yet," she pleaded, as she rocked herself in distress.

"When you will," he said.

She bowed her head gravely. The tone of hopelessness in which he said
these things grieved her deeply. It had always been a failure between
them. Tacitly, she acquiesced in what he felt.

And after a week of love he said to his mother suddenly one Sunday
night, just as they were going to bed:

"I shan't go so much to Miriam's, mother."

She was surprised, but she would not ask him anything.

"You please yourself," she said.

So he went to bed. But there was a new quietness about him which she
had wondered at. She almost guessed. She would leave him alone, however.
Precipitation might spoil things. She watched him in his loneliness,
wondering where he would end. He was sick, and much too quiet for him.
There was a perpetual little knitting of his brows, such as she had seen
when he was a small baby, and which had been gone for many years. Now
it was the same again. And she could do nothing for him. He had to go on
alone, make his own way.

He continued faithful to Miriam. For one day he had loved her utterly.
But it never came again. The sense of failure grew stronger. At first it
was only a sadness. Then he began to feel he could not go on. He wanted
to run, to go abroad, anything. Gradually he ceased to ask her to have
him. Instead of drawing them together, it put them apart. And then he
realised, consciously, that it was no good. It was useless trying: it
would never be a success between them.

For some months he had seen very little of Clara. They had occasionally
walked out for half an hour at dinner-time. But he always reserved
himself for Miriam. With Clara, however, his brow cleared, and he
was gay again. She treated him indulgently, as if he were a child. He
thought he did not mind. But deep below the surface it piqued him.

Sometimes Miriam said:

"What about Clara? I hear nothing of her lately."

"I walked with her about twenty minutes yesterday," he replied.

"And what did she talk about?"

"I don't know. I suppose I did all the jawing--I usually do. I think I
was telling her about the strike, and how the women took it."

"Yes."

So he gave the account of himself.

But insidiously, without his knowing it, the warmth he felt for Clara
drew him away from Miriam, for whom he felt responsible, and to whom he
felt he belonged. He thought he