ts from a mere chance
effect--of the sunlight on the green leaves or the flutter of Laura's
blue gown against the balsam. In the very intensity of his enjoyment
there was at certain instants almost a terrified presentiment; and
following this there were periods of flagging impulse when he asked
himself indifferently if a life of the emotions brought as its Nemesis
an essential incapacity for love? If Laura had only kept up the pursuit
a little longer, he complained once in a despondent mood, if she had
only fluttered her tinted veil as skilfully as a woman of the world
might have done. "Yet was it not for this unworldliness--for this lack
of artifice in her--that I first loved her?" he demanded, indignant with
her, with nature, with himself. She had surrendered her soul, he
realised, with the frankness of inexperience; the excitement of the
chase was now over forever, and he saw stretching ahead of him only the
radiant monotony of love. Was the satiety with which, in these listless
instants, he looked forward to it merely, he questioned bitterly, the
inevitable end to which his life had reached?

Lying in a hammock on the broad piazza of Gerty's camp, he asked himself
the question while he watched Laura, who stood at a little distance
examining some decorations for the hall.

"Oh, I'd choose the green tapestry by all means," he heard her say; and
he told himself as he listened to the ordinary words that if she had
been a perfect stranger to him he would have known her voice for the
voice of a woman who was in love. Was she really lacking, he asked
himself in amusement, in the quality which he called for want of a
better phrase--"the finesse of sentiment?" or was the angelic candour of
her emotion only the outward expression of that largeness of nature
which inspired him at times with a respect akin to awe? The absence of
any coquetry in her attitude impressed him as the final proof of her
inherent nobility; and yet there were instants when he admitted almost
in spite of himself, that he would have relished the display of a little
amorous evasion. Laura, he believed, was perfectly capable of a great
emotion, but the great emotion, after all, he concluded humorously, was
less conducive to his immediate enjoyment than was the small flirtation.

The two women were still discussing the bit of tapestry; and while he
watched them, a ray of sunlight, piercing the bough of a maple beside
the porch, felt with a charming brightn