it not rather
that she had ceased to play at being grown-up, and was conscious,
suddenly, that she was alarmingly mature and in earnest?

There was still unbroken silence between Katharine and Ralph Denham, but
the occupants of the different cages served instead of speech.

"What have you been doing since we met?" Ralph asked at length.

"Doing?" she pondered. "Walking in and out of other people's houses. I
wonder if these animals are happy?" she speculated, stopping before a
gray bear, who was philosophically playing with a tassel which once,
perhaps, formed part of a lady's parasol.

"I'm afraid Rodney didn't like my coming," Ralph remarked.

"No. But he'll soon get over that," she replied. The detachment
expressed by her voice puzzled Ralph, and he would have been glad if she
had explained her meaning further. But he was not going to press her
for explanations. Each moment was to be, as far as he could make it,
complete in itself, owing nothing of its happiness to explanations,
borrowing neither bright nor dark tints from the future.

"The bears seem happy," he remarked. "But we must buy them a bag of
something. There's the place to buy buns. Let's go and get them."
They walked to the counter piled with little paper bags, and each
simultaneously produced a shilling and pressed it upon the young lady,
who did not know whether to oblige the lady or the gentleman, but
decided, from conventional reasons, that it was the part of the
gentleman to pay.

"I wish to pay," said Ralph peremptorily, refusing the coin which
Katharine tendered. "I have a reason for what I do," he added, seeing
her smile at his tone of decision.

"I believe you have a reason for everything," she agreed, breaking the
bun into parts and tossing them down the bears' throats, "but I can't
believe it's a good one this time. What is your reason?"

He refused to tell her. He could not explain to her that he was offering
up consciously all his happiness to her, and wished, absurdly enough, to
pour every possession he had upon the blazing pyre, even his silver and
gold. He wished to keep this distance between them--the distance which
separates the devotee from the image in the shrine.

Circumstances conspired to make this easier than it would have been, had
they been seated in a drawing-room, for example, with a tea-tray between
them. He saw her against a background of pale grottos and sleek hides;
camels slanted their heavy-ridded eyes at her, g