houghts had taken her right away out of his
presence, out of the carriage beyond the sunset. Where had they taken
her? He wondered.

* * * * *

That night she came down, dressed in glowing apricot--"fold after fold
to the fainting air."

As always, her clothes seemed part of her, without ends or beginnings,
flowing from her, a streaming enhancing accompaniment. He asked her if
her dress were nymphe emue or feuille morte. He was proud of knowing
those two names. She said it was neither. He begged her to tell him, but
she refused rather abruptly to discuss it. He said he loved her
clothes--that he would like to know....

"Pour l'amour de Dieu, ne parlons pas robes."

He wondered at her irritability, but he obeyed.

They went out on to the terrace. The sea was black and angry, all the
waves at cross purposes.

"What is your name?"

"Paula."

"What will you say when I tell you that I love you, that I want you?"

"You won't tell me because you will know that I don't want you to."

Her voice was a part of the wind.

"Why don't you want me to?" he was urgent--harsh with desire.

"Because it all happened twenty-five years ago."

He didn't understand.

"Because--because there are some things you can't do twice--like your
book, they are the big things that create a strength of resistance.
Because they are the beautiful things that belong to our dreams. Because
they are of a magic fabric, into which you can weave no facts."

It was dark and he could not see her. The end of his cigarette was a
bright spot in the night. The sea and the wind were the counterpoint of
her voice.

He felt unreal and remote and small. A tiny strand in the vast design of
destiny.

She got up and walked in. He did not move.

* * * * *

"Thank you for the flowers."

The sun was glittering frivolous and cynical.

The box he had ordered from Paris had arrived. First there was a mass of
Juliette roses--gilt and velvet--then a staircase of sweet peas,
flame-coloured, coral, crimson, magenta, purple, bronze and black.

Both together they drank in the blaze of colour.

Ecstatically he said to her,

"You can't thank _me_, can you? They are too beautiful."

"Perhaps not," she said, "but it was beauty unleashed by you."

He looked at her with adoring eyes. She gave you phrases which lit
torches in your soul.

They walked down the beach together. The sea was light and m