ildering on
account of its frankness:

"What were we talking of before we pulled up?"

"I don't know what we were talking of," I said, "but we seem to have
trodden on the fringe of a fairy-tale."

"Can't we tread on it again?" She laughed happily.

"You have only to cast the spell of your witchery over me again."

She drew yet a little nearer and whispered: "I'm trying to do it as hard
as I can."

An adorable softness came into her eyes, and her hand instinctively
closed round mine in its boneless clasp. The long pent-up longing of
the woman vibrated from her in waves that shook me to my soul. My senses
swam. Her face quivered glorious before me in a black world. Her lips
were parted. Careless of all the eyes in all the houses in the Avenue
Road, St. John's Wood, and in the head of a telegraph boy whom I only
noticed afterwards, I kissed her on the lips.

All the fulness and strength of life danced through my veins.

"I told you I was quite alive!" I said with idiotic exultation.

She closed her eyes and leaned back. "Why did you do that?" she
murmured.

"Because I love you," said I. "It has come at last."

Where we drove I have no recollection. Presumably an impression of green
rolling plain with soft uplands in the distance signified that we passed
along Hampstead Heath; the side thoroughfare with villa residences on
either side may have been Kilburn High Road; the flourishing, busy,
noisy suburb may have been Kilburn: the street leading thence to
the Marble Arch may have been Maida Vale. To me they were paths in
Dreamland. We spoke but little and what we did say was in the simple,
commonplace language which all men use in the big crises of life.

There was no doubt now of my choice. I loved her. Love had come to me at
last. That was all I knew at that hour and all I cared to know.

Lola was the first to awake from Dreamland. She shivered. I asked
whether she felt cold.

"No. I can't believe that you love me. I can't. I can't."

I smiled in a masterful way. "I can soon show you that I do."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid, Simon, I'm afraid."

"What of?"

"Myself."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you. I can't explain. I don't know how to. I've been
wrong--horribly wrong. I'm ashamed."

She gripped her hands together and looked down at them. I bent forward
so as to see her face, which was full of pain.

"But, dearest of all women," I cried, "what in the world have you to be
ashamed of?"

She pause