ck
and falsehood. Not within a hundred miles of this house, where they came
clinging to me all profaned from the mouth of that man. Haven't you
heard them--the horrible things? And what can words have to do between
you and me?"

Her hands were stretched out imploringly, I said, childishly
disconcerted:

"But, Rita, how can I help using words of love to you? They come of
themselves on my lips!"

"They come! Ah! But I shall seal your lips with the thing itself," she
said. "Like this. . . "

SECOND NOTE

The narrative of our man goes on for some six months more, from this, the
last night of the Carnival season up to and beyond the season of roses.
The tone of it is much less of exultation than might have been expected.
Love as is well known having nothing to do with reason, being insensible
to forebodings and even blind to evidence, the surrender of those two
beings to a precarious bliss has nothing very astonishing in itself; and
its portrayal, as he attempts it, lacks dramatic interest. The
sentimental interest could only have a fascination for readers themselves
actually in love. The response of a reader depends on the mood of the
moment, so much so that a book may seem extremely interesting when read
late at night, but might appear merely a lot of vapid verbiage in the
morning. My conviction is that the mood in which the continuation of his
story would appear sympathetic is very rare. This consideration has
induced me to suppress it--all but the actual facts which round up the
previous events and satisfy such curiosity as might have been aroused by
the foregoing narrative.

It is to be remarked that this period is characterized more by a deep and
joyous tenderness than by sheer passion. All fierceness of spirit seems
to have burnt itself out in their preliminary hesitations and struggles
against each other and themselves. Whether love in its entirety has,
speaking generally, the same elementary meaning for women as for men, is
very doubtful. Civilization has been at work there. But the fact is
that those two display, in every phase of discovery and response, an
exact accord. Both show themselves amazingly ingenuous in the practice
of sentiment. I believe that those who know women won't be surprised to
hear me say that she was as new to love as he was. During their retreat
in the region of the Maritime Alps, in a small house built of dry stones
and embowered with roses, they appear all