that freedom too easily obtained carried at its heart
disappointment. The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then
disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer
to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes.

It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as
an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He
always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to
reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one
emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all
human beings--

But he could not wait.... He knew, by this time, that reflection was
always a period of disappointment. He was unhappily made in that he
yielded to his impulses of regret as eagerly as to his impulses of
anticipation--One mood followed so swiftly upon another that collision
might seem inevitable.

They were, both of them, young enough to see life as something that
would inevitably, in a short time, condemn them both to years of sterile
monotony. Rachel indeed felt that she was already caught....

They must, both of them, therefore, make the best of their time.

"I _was_ so afraid," he repeated again, "lest something should have
stopped you."

"I would have asked you to come to us, only I'm afraid that my husband
still----"

"Oh! I quite understand."

"It's natural--Roddy's like that. If he wants to do a thing he doesn't
care for anybody and just does it. But if nothing makes him especially
want to do it, then he just takes other people's opinions. Now he might
ask you suddenly to come and see us--simply because he took it into his
head. Then nobody could stop him.... He's very obstinate."

She was rather surprised at herself for talking about Roddy. She had a
curious feeling about him as though she were going on a journey and had
just said good-bye to him and had a rather desolate choke in her throat
because she wouldn't see him again for so long.

"Oh! but I'm glad you've come! If you knew the times and times when I've
imagined this meeting--thought about it, pictured----"

She saw that his hand was trembling on the window-ledge--

"I oughtn't to have come, perhaps--But I don't know. I've felt so
indignant at the way that grandmother is treating you. I wanted to
_show_ you that I was indignant...."

"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already--You
showed me the very first time that