inished house, the building of which was
being pushed on by electric light. The great walls, ivory white in the
glare, rose into the purply-blue of the starry February sky, and as they
passed within the power of the lamps each saw with noonday distinctness
every line and feature in the other's face. They swept on-the night,
with its alternations of flame and shadow, an unreal and enchanted world
about them. A space of darkness succeeded the space of daylight. Behind
them in the distance was the sound of hammers and workmen's voices;
before them the dim trees of the park. Not a human being was in sight.
London seemed to exist to be the mere dark friendly shelter of this
wandering of theirs.

A blast of wind blew her cloak out of her grasp. But before she could
close it again, an arm was flung around her. Should not speak or move,
she stood passive, conscious only of the strangeness of the wintry wind,
and of this warm breast against which her cheek was laid.

'Oh, stay there!' a voice said close to her ear. 'Rest there--pale tired
child--pale tired little child!'

That moment seemed to last an eternity. He held her close, cherishing
and protecting her from the cold--not kissing her--till at length she
looked up with bright eyes, shining through happy tears.

'Are you sure at last?' she said, strangely enough, speaking out of the
far depths of her own thought to his.

'Sure!' he said, his expression changing. 'What can I be sure of? I
am sure that I am not worth your loving, sure that I am poor,
insignificant, obscure, that if you give yourself to me you will be
miserably throwing yourself away!'

She looked at him, still smiling, a white sorceress weaving spells about
him in the darkness. He drew her lightly gloved hand through his arm,
holding the fragile fingers close in his, and they moved on.

'Do you know,' he repeated--a tone of intense melancholy replacing the
tone of passion-'how little I have to give you?'

'I know,' she answered, her face turned shly away from him, her words
coming from under the fur hood which had fallen forward a little. 'I
know that-that--you are not rich, that you distrust yourself, that----'

'Oh, hush,' he said, and his voice was full of pain. 'You know so
little; let me paint myself. I have lived alone, for myself, in myself,
till sometimes there seems to be hardly anything left in me to love or
be loved; nothing but a brain, a machine that exists only for certain
selfish ends.