re wonderful than ever."

An immense relief, and a reluctance to enjoy that relief, conflicted in
her heart.

She slid down into the chair.

"I thought you disliked me," she said.

"God knows I tried," he replied. "I've done my best to see you as you
are, without any of this damned romantic nonsense. That was why I asked
you here, and it's increased my folly. When you're gone I shall look
out of that window and think of you. I shall waste the whole evening
thinking of you. I shall waste my whole life, I believe."

He spoke with such vehemence that her relief disappeared; she frowned;
and her tone changed to one almost of severity.

"This is what I foretold. We shall gain nothing but unhappiness. Look at
me, Ralph." He looked at her. "I assure you that I'm far more ordinary
than I appear. Beauty means nothing whatever. In fact, the most
beautiful women are generally the most stupid. I'm not that, but I'm a
matter-of-fact, prosaic, rather ordinary character; I order the dinner,
I pay the bills, I do the accounts, I wind up the clock, and I never
look at a book."

"You forget--" he began, but she would not let him speak.

"You come and see me among flowers and pictures, and think me
mysterious, romantic, and all the rest of it. Being yourself very
inexperienced and very emotional, you go home and invent a story about
me, and now you can't separate me from the person you've imagined me to
be. You call that, I suppose, being in love; as a matter of fact it's
being in delusion. All romantic people are the same," she added. "My
mother spends her life in making stories about the people she's fond of.
But I won't have you do it about me, if I can help it."

"You can't help it," he said.

"I warn you it's the source of all evil."

"And of all good," he added.

"You'll find out that I'm not what you think me."

"Perhaps. But I shall gain more than I lose."

"If such gain's worth having."

They were silent for a space.

"That may be what we have to face," he said. "There may be nothing else.
Nothing but what we imagine."

"The reason of our loneliness," she mused, and they were silent for a
time.

"When are you to be married?" he asked abruptly, with a change of tone.

"Not till September, I think. It's been put off."

"You won't be lonely then," he said. "According to what people say,
marriage is a very queer business. They say it's different from anything
else. It may be true. I've known one or two cases