won't come in--when you've
had no supper?"

He smiled at her with a purpose of kindness that could never in his life
have been greater; and at first but smiled without a word. He presently
shook his head, however--doubtless also with as great a sadness. "I seem
to have supped to my fill, Princess. Thank you, I won't come in."

It drew from her, while she looked at him, a long low anxious wail. "And
you won't do my Preface?"

"No, Princess, I won't do your Preface. Nothing would induce me to say
a word in print about you. I'm in fact not sure I shall ever mention you
in any manner at all as long as ever I live."

He had felt for an instant as if he were speaking to some miraculously
humanised idol, all sacred, all jewelled, all votively hung about, but
made mysterious, in the recess of its shrine, by the very thickness
of the accumulated lustre. And "Then you don't like me--?" was the
marvellous sound from the image.

"Princess," was in response the sound of the worshipper, "Princess, I
adore you. But I'm ashamed for you."

"Ashamed----?"

"You _are_ Romance--as everything, and by what I make out every one,
about you is; so what more do you want? Your Preface--the only one worth
speaking of--was written long ages ago by the most beautiful imagination
of man."

Humanised at least for these moments, she could understand enough to
declare that she didn't. "I don't, I don't!"

"You don't need to understand. Don't attempt such base things. Leave
those to us. Only live. Only be. _We'll_ do the rest."

She moved over--she had come close to the window. "Ah, but Mr.
Berridge----!"

He raised both hands; he shook them at her gently, in deep and soft
deprecation. "Don't sound my dreadful name. Fortunately, however, you
can't help yourself."

"Ah, _voyons!_ I so want-----!"

He repeated his gesture, and when he brought down his hands they closed
together on both of hers, which now quite convulsively grasped the
window-ledge. "Don't speak, because when you speak you really say
things--!" "You _are_ Romance," he pronounced afresh and with the last
intensity of conviction and persuasion. "That's all you have to do with
it," he continued while his hands, for emphasis, pressed hard on her
own.

Their faces, in this way, were nearer together than ever, but with the
effect of only adding to the vividness of that dire non-intelligence
from which, all perversely and incalculably, her very beauty now
appeared to gain relie