d been so quick to learn the forms of
worldly intercourse; but he soon saw that she regarded intimacy as a
pretext for escaping from such forms into a total absence of expression.

To-night, however, he felt another meaning in her silence, and perceived
that she intended him to feel it. He met it by silence, but of a
different kind; letting his nearness speak for him as he knelt beside
her and laid his cheek against hers. She seemed hardly aware of
the gesture; but to that he was also used. She had never shown any
repugnance to his tenderness, but such response as it evoked was remote
and Ariel-like, suggesting, from the first, not so much of the recoil of
ignorance as the coolness of the element from which she took her name.

As he pressed her to him she seemed to grow less impassive and he felt
her resign herself like a tired child. He held his breath, not daring to
break the spell.

At length he whispered: "I've just seen such a wonderful thing--I wish
you'd been with me!"

"What sort of a thing?" She turned her head with a faint show of
interest.

"A--I don't know--a vision.... It came to me out there just now with the
moonrise."

"A vision?" Her interest flagged. "I never cared much about spirits.
Mother used to try to drag me to seances--but they always made me
sleepy."

Ralph laughed. "I don't mean a dead spirit but a living one! I saw the
vision of a book I mean to do. It came to me suddenly, magnificently,
swooped down on me as that big white moon swooped down on the black
landscape, tore at me like a great white eagle-like the bird of Jove!
After all, imagination WAS the eagle that devoured Prometheus!"

She drew away abruptly, and the bright moonlight showed him the
apprehension in her face. "You're not going to write a book HERE?"

He stood up and wandered away a step or two; then he turned and came
back. "Of course not here. Wherever you want. The main point is that
it's come to me--no, that it's come BACK to me! For it's all these
months together, it's all our happiness--it's the meaning of life that
I've found, and it's you, dearest, you who've given it to me!"

He dropped down beside her again; but she disengaged herself and he
heard a little sob in her throat.

"Undine--what's the matter?"

"Nothing...I don't know...I suppose I'm homesick..."

"Homesick? You poor darling! You're tired of travelling? What is it?"

"I don't know...I don't like Europe...it's not what I expected, and I
thi