been suffering all this
time--this eternity?"

"Yes. That is, I'm suffering enough now."

"Then perhaps you have some idea of what you made me feel."

"Again?"

"It's the first time I've reproached you with it, even in my
thoughts."

He looked at her with unbelieving eyes. And yet he knew that it was
true. Her sweetness, her lucidity, had been proof against the
supreme provocation. She had forgiven, if she had not forgotten, the
insult that no woman remembers and forgives.

As his eyes wandered the hand that had lain so lightly on his arm
gripped it to command his attention, and he trembled through all his
being. But she no longer shrank from him; she kept her hold, she
tightened it, insisting.

"Oh, Maurice! haven't I told you that I understood?"

He smiled. "Yes. Thank God I can always appeal to your
understanding, if I can't get at your heart. Supposing I didn't care
for you then? Supposing I was too stupid to see what you were? Is
five years, though it may be eternity, so long a time to learn to
know you in? You take a great deal of learning, Frida; you are very
difficult. There's so much more of you than any man can grasp. But
you are the only woman I ever cared to know. I believe you have a
thousand sides to you, and every one--every one I can see--appeals
to me. There's no end to the interest. Whatever I see or don't see,
I always find something more, and I never could be tired of
looking."

She sighed and was silent.

"And you blame me because I couldn't see all this at once? Because
it took me five years to love you? Remember, you were very cautious;
you wouldn't let me see more than a bit at a time. But I love every
bit of you--heart and soul, and body and brain; I love you as I
never could love any other woman in the world--the world, Frida," he
added, pointing the hackneyed phrase. "You _are_ the world."

They had never stopped pacing the deck together, as they talked,
turn after turn, alike and yet unlike in their eagerness and unrest.
Now they stood still. Far off they could see the returning boat, a
speck at the mouth of the harbor, and they knew that their time was
short.

"Maurice," she said, "before you go I have a confession to make. I
wasn't quite honest with you just now when I said I only liked you
five years ago. I know very well that I loved you. The world has
taught me so much."

The world! He frowned angrily as she said it. But through all his
anger he admired the reckless n