an't do my own hair! Do you mean you will get me a maid?"

"Good God!" I cried, disconcerted beyond measure, "won't you learn to do
your own hair for me? Do you mean to say you can love a man--"

She flung out her hands at me. "Don't spoil it," she cried. "I have
given you all I have, I have given you all I can. If I could do it, if
I was good enough to do it, I would. But I am a woman spoilt and
ruined, dear, and you are a ruined man. When we are making love we're
lovers--but think of the gulf between us in habits and ways of thought,
in will and training, when we are not making love. Think of it--and
don't think of it! Don't think of it yet. We have snatched some hours.
We still may have some hours!"

She suddenly knelt forward toward me, with a glowing darkness in her
eyes. "Who cares if it upsets?" she cried. "If you say another word I
will kiss you. And go to the bottom clutching you.

"I'm not afraid of that. I'm not a bit afraid of that. I'll die with you.
Choose a death, and I'll die with you--readily. Do listen to me! I love
you. I shall always love you. It's because I love you that I won't go
down to become a dirty familiar thing with you amidst the grime. I've
given all I can. I've had all I can.... Tell me," and she crept nearer,
"have I been like the dusk to you, like the warm dusk? Is there magic
still? Listen to the ripple of water from your paddle. Look at the warm
evening light in the sky. Who cares if the canoe upsets? Come nearer to
me. Oh, my love! come near! So."

She drew me to her and our lips met.

III

I asked her to marry me once again.

It was our last morning together, and we had met very early, about
sunrise, knowing that we were to part. No sun shone that day. The sky
was overcast, the morning chilly and lit by a clear, cold, spiritless
light. A heavy dampness in the air verged close on rain. When I think of
that morning, it has always the quality of greying ashes wet with rain.

Beatrice too had changed. The spring had gone out of her movement; it
came to me, for the first time, that some day she might grow old. She
had become one flesh with the rest of common humanity; the softness
had gone from her voice and manner, the dusky magic of her presence had
gone. I saw these things with perfect clearness, and they made me sorry
for them and for her. But they altered my love not a whit, abated it
nothing. And when we had talked awkwardly for half a dozen sentences, I
came dully to my