ind I had not hitherto
imagined. Was there in me a grain of doubt of my ability to respond to
such a high call? I began to perceive that such a union as we
contemplated involved more obligations than one not opposed to
traditional views of morality. I fortified myself, however,--if indeed I
really needed fortification in a mood prevailingly triumphant and
exalted,--with the thought that this love was different, the real thing,
the love of maturity steeped in the ideals of youth. Here was a love for
which I must be prepared to renounce other things on which I set a high
value; prepared, in case the world, for some reason, should not look upon
us with kindliness. It was curious that such reflections as these should
have been delayed until after the achievement of my absorbing desire,
more curious that they should have followed so closely on the heels of
it. The affair had shifted suddenly from a basis of adventure, of
uncertainty; to one of fact, of commitment; I am exaggerating my concern
in order to define it; I was able to persuade myself without much
difficulty that these little, cloudy currents in the stream of my joy
were due to a natural reaction from the tremendous strain of the past
weeks, mere morbid fancies.

When at length I reached my room at the Club I sat looking out at the
rain falling on the shining pavements under the arc-lights. Though waves
of heat caused by some sudden recollection or impatient longing still ran
through my body, a saner joy of anticipation was succeeding emotional
tumult, and I reflected that Nancy had been right in insisting that we
walk circumspectly in spite of passion. After all, I had outwitted
circumstance, I had gained the prize, I could afford to wait a little. We
should talk it over to-morrow,--no, to-day. The luminous face of the city
hall clock reminded me that midnight was long past....

I awoke with the consciousness of a new joy, suddenly to identify it with
Nancy. She was mine! I kept repeating it as I dressed; summoning her, not
as she had lain in my arms in the darkness--though the intoxicating
sweetness of that pervaded me--but as she had been before the
completeness of her surrender, dainty, surrounded by things expressing an
elusive, uniquely feminine personality. I could afford to smile at the
weather, at the obsidian sky, at the rain still falling persistently; and
yet, as I ate my breakfast, I felt a certain impatience to verify what I
knew was a certainty, and