athy.... Didn't you tell
me once yourself--" Gerald's voice stiffened, and he pulled himself up
again, discarding weakness,--"Didn't you once tell me yourself--in your
impossible English, almost as bad as mine--that a sick man is 'liable to
fall in love with his nurse?' And, dear girl, I will not do it. I
categorically refuse. It is too horrible. I have done with all that. I
have just managed to creep up on to the dry sand, and you ask me to
embark again on those same waters. I will not do it. It is finished.
That slavery! that unrest! and fever! and jealousy! No, not again. I
have served my sentence. Too many times I have waked in the black of
night and waited for daylight, wishing I had been dust for a hundred
years. I know now that in order to have a little peace a person must not
want anything. That is the price. We mustn't want anything, Aurora. We
mustn't want anything, we mustn't mind anything, we mustn't care about
anything, we must submit to everything!" This counsel of perfection came
from Gerald almost in a sob. "We sha'n't be happy like that, naturally,
but we sha'n't be too wretched for expression, either. It's the lesson
of life. I have learned it, and I will not expose myself to the old
chances again. 'He who loves for the first time is a god,' says the
poet, 'but he who loves for the second time is a fool,' he goes on to
say. And so, Aurora--"

"You make me laugh!" exclaimed Aurora in a snort of simple scorn.

"And so, Aurora, I am going to keep away from you for--I am not at the
present moment quite able to say how long."

"You're going to do nothing of the sort! There now!" burst from Aurora.
"I'm not going to permit any such foolishness." She firmly proceeded to
pile up a barricade against his preposterous intention. "Now, Gerald,
you pay attention to what I say, child. Can't you see for yourself, now
you've put it into words, what nonsense all this is? You could no more,
in your sane and waking moments, be sentimentally in love with me, and
you know it, than, I guess, I could with you, fond of you as I am. No,
that isn't putting it strongly enough," she gallantly amended; "you
couldn't do it, it stands to reason, even so easily as I could. What you
felt was just the result of you being so weak, all full of fever dreams
and delusions. And you still believe in it a little because you aren't
yet good and strong. I thought you were, just at first, because you come
so near looking it. But I know that co