t you--unless you'll unsay
what you've said?"

"Very well. I'm not in love with you."

"But I think you ARE in love with me.... As I am with you," she added
casually enough. "At least," she said slipping her ring back to its old
position, "what other word describes the state we're in?"

She looked at him gravely and inquiringly, as if in search of help.

"It's when I'm with you that I doubt it, not when I'm alone," he stated.

"So I thought," she replied.

In order to explain to her his state of mind, Ralph recounted his
experience with the photograph, the letter, and the flower picked at
Kew. She listened very seriously.

"And then you went raving about the streets," she mused. "Well, it's bad
enough. But my state is worse than yours, because it hasn't anything
to do with facts. It's an hallucination, pure and simple--an
intoxication.... One can be in love with pure reason?" she hazarded.
"Because if you're in love with a vision, I believe that that's what I'm
in love with."

This conclusion seemed fantastic and profoundly unsatisfactory to Ralph,
but after the astonishing variations of his own sentiments during the
past half-hour he could not accuse her of fanciful exaggeration.

"Rodney seems to know his own mind well enough," he said almost
bitterly. The music, which had ceased, had now begun again, and the
melody of Mozart seemed to express the easy and exquisite love of the
two upstairs.

"Cassandra never doubted for a moment. But we--" she glanced at him as
if to ascertain his position, "we see each other only now and then--"

"Like lights in a storm--"

"In the midst of a hurricane," she concluded, as the window shook
beneath the pressure of the wind. They listened to the sound in silence.

Here the door opened with considerable hesitation, and Mrs. Hilbery's
head appeared, at first with an air of caution, but having made sure
that she had admitted herself to the dining-room and not to some more
unusual region, she came completely inside and seemed in no way taken
aback by the sight she saw. She seemed, as usual, bound on some quest of
her own which was interrupted pleasantly but strangely by running into
one of those queer, unnecessary ceremonies that other people thought fit
to indulge in.

"Please don't let me interrupt you, Mr.--" she was at a loss, as usual,
for the name, and Katharine thought that she did not recognize him. "I
hope you've found something nice to read," she added, pointing