me, Geoffrey, for such a long time!"

"What's the use?" said Geoffrey, who was lying on his face, his eyes
covered by his hands--"I'm not feeling philosophical."

"All the same, you made me once read half a volume of Bergson. I didn't
understand much of it, except that--whatever else he is, he's a great
poet. And I do know something about poetry! But I remember one sentence
very well--Life--isn't it Life?--is 'an action which is making itself,
across an action of the same kind which is unmaking itself.' And he
compares it to a rocket in a fire-works display rushing up in flame
through the falling cinders of the dead rockets."

She paused.

"Go on--"

"Give the cinders a little time to fall, Geoffrey!" she said in a
faltering voice.

He looked up ardently.

"Why? It's only the living fire that matters! Darling--let's come to
close quarters. You gave a bit of your warm heart to Philip, and you
imagined that it meant much more than it really did. And poor Philip all
the time was determined--cribbed and cabined--by his past,--and now by
his boy. We both know that if he marries anybody it will be Cynthia
Welwyn; and that he would be happier and less lonely if he married her.
But so long as your life is unsettled he will marry nobody. He remembers
that your mother entrusted you to him in the firm belief that, in his
uncertainty about his wife, he neither could nor would marry anybody. So
that for these two years, at any rate, he holds himself absolutely bound
to his compact with her and you."

"And the moral of that is--" said Helena, flushing.

"Marry me!--Nothing simpler. Then the compact falls--and at one stroke
you bring two men into port."

The conflict of expressions passing through her features showed her
shaken. He waited.

"Very well, Geoffrey--" she said at last, with a long, quivering breath,
as though some hostile force rent her and came out.

"If you want me so much--take me!"

But as she spoke she became aware of the lover in him ready to spring.
She drew back instantly from his cry of joy, and his outstretched arms.

"Ah, but give me time--dear Geoffrey, give me time! You have my word."

He controlled himself, warned by her agitation, and her pallor.

"Mayn't we tell Philip--when he comes?"

"Yes, we'll tell Philip--and Lucy--to-night. Not a word!--till then." She
jumped up--"Are you going to climb that crag before tea? I am!"

She led him breathlessly up its steep side and down again. Whe