iscarded.

"Why not? Are you tired?"

"Yes, and it wears you out."

He laughed shortly, realising.

"Yet you always make me like it," he said.

"I don't wish to," she said, very low.

"Not when you've gone too far, and you feel you can't bear it. But your
unconscious self always asks it of me. And I suppose I want it."

He went on, in his dead fashion:

"If only you could want ME, and not want what I can reel off for you!"

"I!" she cried bitterly--"I! Why, when would you let me take you?"

"Then it's my fault," he said, and, gathering himself together, he got
up and began to talk trivialities. He felt insubstantial. In a vague way
he hated her for it. And he knew he was as much to blame himself. This,
however, did not prevent his hating her.

One evening about this time he had walked along the home road with her.
They stood by the pasture leading down to the wood, unable to part. As
the stars came out the clouds closed. They had glimpses of their own
constellation, Orion, towards the west. His jewels glimmered for a
moment, his dog ran low, struggling with difficulty through the spume of
cloud.

Orion was for them chief in significance among the constellations. They
had gazed at him in their strange, surcharged hours of feeling, until
they seemed themselves to live in every one of his stars. This evening
Paul had been moody and perverse. Orion had seemed just an ordinary
constellation to him. He had fought against his glamour and fascination.
Miriam was watching her lover's mood carefully. But he said nothing
that gave him away, till the moment came to part, when he stood frowning
gloomily at the gathered clouds, behind which the great constellation
must be striding still.

There was to be a little party at his house the next day, at which she
was to attend.

"I shan't come and meet you," he said.

"Oh, very well; it's not very nice out," she replied slowly.

"It's not that--only they don't like me to. They say I care more for
you than for them. And you understand, don't you? You know it's only
friendship."

Miriam was astonished and hurt for him. It had cost him an effort. She
left him, wanting to spare him any further humiliation. A fine rain blew
in her face as she walked along the road. She was hurt deep down; and
she despised him for being blown about by any wind of authority. And in
her heart of hearts, unconsciously, she felt that he was trying to get
away from her. This she would never h