tly as
it burnt in her own. "But we can't do this. We should both despise
ourselves afterwards. You should be the last person to urge it on me.
What do I ask you? To wait another nine months! That's all. You should
help me."

"Help you?" she said, her eyes blazing upon me with anger, shame and
passion. "Help you in making a fatal mistake? No, I will not! You can
refuse me if you like, but all the responsibility is with you. I warn
you against it. I have come to warn you. When it is too late you will
wish this day back again. You are not tied now after a whole year's
work, and after a misfortune you could not help. If you always wait in
life until you have settled and arranged everything just to your
satisfaction you will find that you lose your desires. They will slip
like sand through your hands while you are arranging your
circumstances. Life is never, never quite as we would have it. We must
take our pleasures one by one as they are offered to us; it is hopeless
to think we can gain them all together. Oh, Victor dearest!" she added,
stretching out two rounded, glowing arms in a sort of half-timid
desperation and clasping them round my neck, while mine still held her
heaving waist, "love now, and win your name by-and-by."

There was delirium in my brain. The whole woman's form swam before my
sight. My arms locked themselves violently round the yielding,
pulsating waist.

"I would if I could," I muttered, and that was as much as I could say.

"You can," she urged in a soft, desperate voice. "Why not? I can't
believe you love me if you let me go back now."

"I can't believe you love me if you urge me to do what I think is
dishonourable."

Her arms dropped from my neck.

"Oh, it is a mistake," she said.

"Perhaps so."

We had both risen. The floor seemed to bend beneath my feet. I felt her
pulses still beating against my arms. I looked at her. Our eyes met,
and the gaze seemed locked, fixed, and we neither of us could transfer
it. My throat seemed rigid, dry as a desert; her voice was choked,
suffocated in tears. But "Kiss me, at least; oh, kiss me!" was written
on the whole imploring face, on the wildly quivering lips, in the
burning, distracted eyes. But what use? Rather such a kiss, here, now,
might bring an irremediable loss. In any case, the pain of parting
after would be ten times intensified for us both. Could I then go?
Would any force then be left in me? Would my will stand beyond a
certain point? I