difficulties to!"

And at last I could hold out no longer against these accumulating
pressures.

I took an arrogant, outrageous line that left her no loopholes; I
behaved as though we were living in a melodrama.

"You must come and talk to me," I wrote, "or I will come and take you. I
want you--and the time runs away."

We met in a ride in the upper plantations. It must have been early in
January, for there was snow on the ground and on the branches of the
trees. We walked to and fro for an hour or more, and from the first I
pitched the key high in romance and made understandings impossible. It
was our worst time together. I boasted like an actor, and she, I know
not why, was tired and spiritless.

Now I think over that talk in the light of all that has happened since,
I can imagine how she came to me full of a human appeal I was too
foolish to let her make. I don't know. I confess I have never completely
understood Beatrice. I confess I am still perplexed at many things she
said and did. That afternoon, anyhow, I was impossible. I posed and
scolded. I was--I said it--for "taking the Universe by the throat!"

"If it was only that," she said, but though I heard, I did not heed her.

At last she gave way to me and talked no more. Instead she looked
at me--as a thing beyond her controlling, but none the less
interesting--much as she had looked at me from behind the skirts of Lady
Drew in the Warren when we were children together.

Once even I thought she smiled faintly.

"What are the difficulties" I cried, "there's no difficulty I will not
overcome for you! Do your people think I'm no equal for you? Who says
it? My dear, tell me to win a title! I'll do it in five years!...

"Here am I just grown a man at the sight of you. I have wanted something
to fight for. Let me fight for you!...

"I'm rich without intending it. Let me mean it, give me an honourable
excuse for it, and I'll put all this rotten old Warren of England at
your feet!"

I said such things as that. I write them down here in all their
resounding base pride. I said these empty and foolish things, and they
are part of me. Why should I still cling to pride and be ashamed? I
shouted her down.

I passed from such megalomania to petty accusations.

"You think Carnaby is a better man than I?" I said.

"No!" she cried, stung to speech. "No!"

"You think we're unsubstantial. You've listened to all these rumours
Boom has started because we talked of