on't like my dress," she exclaimed. "I told Celine she was
cutting it too low!"

A step forward and I had her in my arms. Ah! what were dreams to the
keen, sharp delight of feeling her there--alive, and in the
flesh--throbbing and pulsating against me? I declared the dress was
perfect, that I would not have the bodice half an inch higher for
anything, that she looked adorable, and so on, until she was comforted.
The tears passed into laughter, and the flush died away; but she
trembled against me distressingly, and her lips quivered nervously.

I held her to me, but she seemed to flutter uncertainly in my clasp,
just as a bird flutters wildly without aim at the limit of its
tethering cord, and when I released her she sank into the wire chair at
our side with a look of exhaustion stamped on the soft, delicate face.
I saw that it would require all my tact and care to make this evening a
success, and I determined that it should be one for her. Standing there
beside her, looking down on her light head, I made a rough, mental
examination of my thoughts. I seized those that had anything of self in
them, rolled them hastily together, and thrust them into an obscure
corner of my brain out of hearing, to leave the better part of my love
for her free to guide me.

I drew a chair close to her and sat down, letting my arm rest along the
top rail of hers, behind the soft head, which, after a minute, sank
gently back upon it with a movement of tired relief. We neither spoke,
and the perfect, sunny calm of the evening air, the silence, and the
physical rest seemed to soothe her. When the servant came on to the
terrace to announce the dinner, she had recovered, and her arm on mine
was warm and firm.

As soon as we had finished dinner, she rose restlessly from the table
and looked at me with a hesitating air. I smiled back at her, but it
hurt me inwardly this want of confidence, this lack of familiarity she
seemed to have. This sort of hesitation before she made the simplest
request, the start and flush when I spoke suddenly to her, this
timidity of me now, hurt and puzzled me. I, who had taught my dog
implicit trust, seemed to have missed the way with the woman.

I remembered Paris: my own harshness to her there came back upon me
like a blow. The indelible impression of my hardness had been given
then, and she dreaded it now. She had been conquered then; her will and
desire had been broken down to mine; she had been forced to yield