leaded. "Oh, sweet, don't cry. I am mad for love of
you, mad. Kiss me now, one kiss. I am staking my soul on your love. Kiss
me!"

He pressed his lips to hers, but she burst away, terror-stricken.

"Oh, I am so frightened," she exclaimed all at once. "Oh, what shall I
do? I am so afraid. Oh, please, please. Something terrifies me.
Something scares me. Oh, what am I going to do? Let me go back."

She was white and trembling. Her hands were nervously clasping and
unclasping.

Eugene smoothed her arm soothingly. "Be still, Suzanne," he said. "Be
still. I shall say no more. You are all right. I have frightened you. We
will go back. Be calm. You are all right."

He recovered his own poise with an effort because of her obvious terror,
and led her back under the trees. To reassure her he drew his cigar case
from his pocket and pretended to select a cigar. When he saw her
calming, he put it back.

"Are you quieter now, sweet?" he asked, tenderly.

"Yes, but let us go back."

"Listen. I will only go as far as the edge. You go alone. I will watch
you safely to the door."

"Yes," she said peacefully.

"And you really love me, Suzanne?"

"Oh, yes, but don't speak of it. Not tonight. You will frighten me
again. Let us go back."

They strolled on. Then he said: "One kiss, sweet, in parting. One. Life
has opened anew for me. You are the solvent of my whole being. You are
making me over into something different. I feel as though I had never
lived until now. Oh, this experience! It is such a wonderful thing to
have done--to have lived through, to have changed as I have changed. You
have changed me so completely, made me over into the artist again. From
now on I can paint again. I can paint you." He scarcely knew what he was
saying. He felt as though he were revealing himself to himself as in an
apocalyptic vision.

She let him kiss her, but she was too frightened and wrought to even
breathe right. She was intense, emotional, strange. She did not really
understand what it was that he was talking about.

"Tomorrow," he said, "at the wood's edge. Tomorrow. Sweet dreams. I
shall never know peace any more without your love."

And he watched her eagerly, sadly, bitterly, ecstatically, as she walked
lightly from him, disappearing like a shadow through the dark and silent
door.

CHAPTER VII

It would be impossible to describe even in so detailed an account as
this the subtleties, vagaries, beauties and terrors of