new that all this time Robin was looking into her face.
She felt his eyes like two knives piercing her face.

"Twenty-one--twenty-two--"

"Viola!"

He spoke at last and his voice was extraordinary. It was husky, and
sounded desperate and guilty.

"Well?" she said, still looking at the spots.

"Now you know the man I spoke of."

Yes, it was a desperate voice and hard in its desperation.

"You mean that you are the man?"

Still she did not look up. After a pause she heard him say:

"Yes, that I am the man."

Then she looked up. His face was scarlet, like a face flushed with
guilt. His eyes met hers with a staring glance, yet they were furtive.
His hands were clenched on his knees. When she looked at him he began to
smile.

"Viola," he said, "Viola."

He unclenched his hands and put them out towards her, as if to take her
hands. She did not move.

"Poor Robin!" she said.

"Poor--but--what do you mean?" he stammered.

He never turned his eyes from her face.

"Poor Robin!--but it isn't your fault."

Then she put out her hand and touched his gently.

"My fault?

"That it was all a fancy, all a weaving of words. You want to be what
you thought you were, but you can't be."

"You're wrong, Viola, you're utterly wrong--"

"Hush, Robin! That woman you spoke of--that woman knows."

He cleared his throat, got up, went over to the wall, leaned his arms
upon it and hid his face on them. There were tears in his eyes. At
that moment he was suffering more than she was. His soul was rent by an
abject sense of loss, an abject sense of guilty impotence and shame.
It was frightful that he could not be what he wished to be, what he had
thought he was. He longed to comfort her and could not do anything
but plunge a sword into her heart. He longed to surround her with
tenderness--yes, he was sure he longed--but he could only hold up to
her in the sun her loneliness. And he had lost--what had he not lost? A
dream of years, an imagination that had been his inseparable and dearest
companion. His loneliness was intense in that moment as was hers. The
tears seemed to scald his eyes. In his heart he cursed God for not
permitting him to be what he longed to be, to feel what he longed to
feel. It seemed to him monstrous, intolerable, that even our emotions
are arranged for us as are arranged the events of our lives. He felt
like a doll, a horrible puppet.

"Poor old Robin!"

She was standing beside him, and in her voice