ing him along like a leaf in the wind. "I love
you, Isabel, and you love me. Don't deny it."

"Don't do that," said Isabel: "don't hold me."

"Why not? no one can see us."

"Take your arm away. I won't have you hold me. No, Captain Hyde,
I will not. I am not Mrs. Cleve."

"Isabel!" said Lawrence, turning grey under his bronze.

"O! I oughtn't to have said that," Isabel murmured. She hid her
face in her hands. "Oh Val-- I wish Val were here!"

"My darling," they were among the dark streets now that border
the river, and he leant forward making no effort to conceal his
tenderness, "what is there you can't say to me or I to you?
You're so strange, my Isabel, a child one minute and a woman the
next, I never know where to have you, but I love the woman more
than the child, and there's nothing on earth you need be ashamed
to ask me. Naturally you want to be sure. . . . But there was
nothing in it except that I hated leaving you, there never has
been; I can't discuss it, but there's no tie, no--do you
understand?"

"Yes."

"Then, dearest darling of the world, what are you crying for?"

"I'm not crying." She tried to face him, but he was too old for
her, and mingling in his love she discerned indulgence, the
seasoned judgment and the fixed view. Struggling in imperfect
apprehensions of life, she was not yet master of her forces--
they came near to mastering her. In his eyes it was natural for
her to be jealous. But she was not jealous. That passion can
hardly coexist with such sincere and cool contempt as she had
felt for Mrs. Cleve. What had pierced her heart and killed her
childhood in her was terror lest Lawrence should turn out to have
lowered himself to the same level. She knew now that she loved
him, and too much to care whether he was Saxon or Jew or rich or
poor, but he must--he must be what in her child's vocabulary she
called "good," or if not that he must at least see good and bad
with clear eyes: sins one can pardon, but the idea of any
essential inferiority of taste was torture to her. And meanwhile
Lawrence wide of the mark began to coax her. . "My own," his arm
stole inside her coat again, "there's nothing to get so red
about! Come, you do like me--confess now--you like me better
than Val?"

"No, no," Isabel murmured, and slowly, though she had not
strength to free herself, she turned her head away. "If you kiss
me now I never shall forgive you."

"I won't, but why are you so shy?