ng you."

"If you haven't discovered that I like you, you might as well."

"Might as well discover it?"

She was grave--he had never seen her so pale and never so beautiful. She
had stopped rolling her parasol; her hands were folded in her lap and
her eyes bent on them. Nick sat looking at them as well--a trifle
awkwardly. "Might as well have hated me," she said.

"We've got on so beautifully together all these days: why shouldn't we
get on as well for ever and ever?" he brought out. She made no answer,
and suddenly he said: "Ah Julia, I don't know what you've done to me,
but you've done it. You've done it by strange ways, but it will serve.
Yes, I hate you," he added in a different tone and with his face all
nearer.

"Dear Nick, dear Nick----!" she began. But she stopped, feeling his
nearness and its intensity, a nearness now so great that his arm was
round her, that he was really in possession of her. She closed her eyes
but heard him ask again, "Why shouldn't it be for ever, for ever?" in a
voice that had for her ear a vibration none had ever had.

"You've done it, you've done it," Nick repeated.

"What do you want of me?" she appealed.

"To stay with me--this way--always."

"Ah not this way," she answered softly, but as if in pain and making an
effort, with a certain force, to detach herself.

"This way then--or this!" He took such pressing advantage of her that he
had kissed her with repetition. She rose while he insisted, but he held
her yet, and as he did so his tenderness turned to beautiful words. "If
you'll marry me, why shouldn't it be so simple, so right and good?" He
drew her closer again, too close for her to answer. But her struggle
ceased and she rested on him a minute; she buried her face in his
breast.

"You're hard, and it's cruel!" she then exclaimed, shaking herself free.

"Hard--cruel?"

"You do it with so little!" And with this, unexpectedly to Nick, Julia
burst straight into tears. Before he could stop her she was at the door
of the pavilion as if she wished to get immediately away. There,
however, he stayed her, bending over her while she sobbed, unspeakably
gentle with her.

"So little? It's with everything--with everything I have."

"I've done it, you say? What do you accuse me of doing?" Her tears were
already over.

"Of making me yours; of being so precious, Julia, so exactly what a man
wants, as it seems to me. I didn't know you could," he went on, smiling
down at her.