m better than that."

"Thanks. I can do without your assistance," she remarked.

"You think I didn't come near you all this time because I didn't care?"

"I don't think I thought at all about it."

"If you didn't, I did. I was longing, I dare not say how much, to see
you again."

"Why didn't you?" she asked.

"For once in my life, I've tried to go straight."

"What do you mean?"

"You're the sort of girl to get into a man's blood; to make him mad,
reckless, head over ears--"

"Hadn't we better go on?" she asked.

"Why--why?"

She had not thought him capable of such earnestness.

"Because I wish it, and because this churchyard is enough to give one
the blues."

"I love it, now I'm talking to you."

"Love it?" she echoed.

"First of all, you in your youth, and--and your attractiveness--are
such a contrast to everything about us. It emphasises you and--and--it
tells me to snatch all the happiness one can, before the very little
while when we are as they."

Here he pointed to the crowded graves.

"I'm going home," declared Mavis.

"May I come as far as your door?"

"Aren't you ashamed of being seen with me?"

"I'm very, very proud, little Mavis, and, if only my circumstances were
different, I should say much more to you."

His vehemence surprised Mavis into silence; it also awoke a strange joy
in her heart; she seemed to walk on air as they went towards her
lodging.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked presently.

"You."

"Really?"

"I was wondering why you went out of your way to give people a bad
opinion of you."

"I wasn't aware I was especially anxious to do that."

"You don't go to church."

"Are you like that?"

"Not particularly; but other people are, and that's what they say."

"Church is too amusing nowadays."

"I'm afraid my sense of humour isn't sufficiently developed."

"It's the parsons I'm thinking of. Once upon a time, when people went
in for deadly sins, it gave 'em something to preach about. Now we all
lead proper, discreet lives, they have to justify their existence by
inventing tiny sins for their present congregations."

"What sins?" asked Mavis.

"Sins of omission: any trifles they can think of that a more robust
race of soul-savers would have laughed at. No. It's the parsons who
empty the churches."

"I don't like you to talk like that."

"Why? Are you that way?"

"Sometimes more than others."

"I congratulate you."

She looked at him, surprised.