ike against the low horizon in the midst of the November
colours.

"If you only knew how I suffer from you, darling," he said, "I haven't
slept for nights because you refused to kiss me."

"I--I haven't slept either," she faltered.

"Because of me, Blossom?"

"I begin to think and it makes me so unhappy."

"Oh, damn it! Do you love me, Blossom?"

"What difference does it make whether I do or not?"

"It makes all the difference under Heaven! Would you like to love me,
Blossom?"

"I oughtn't to let myself think of it, and I don't when I can help it."

"But can you help it? Tell me, can you help it?"

Turning away from him, she cast a startled glance under the willows in
the direction of the house.

"I must be going back. They will miss me."

"Don't you think I shall miss you, Beauty?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought."

"If you knew how miserable I'll be after you have left me, you'd kiss me
once before you go."

"Don't ask me, I can't--I really can't, Mr. Jonathan."

"Hang Mr. Jonathan and all that appertains to him! What's to become of
me, condemned to this solitude, if you refuse to become kind to me? By
Jove, if it wasn't for my mother, I'd ask you to marry me!"

"I don't want to marry you," she responded haughtily, and completed her
triumph. Something stronger than passion--that _something_ compounded
partly of moral fibre, partly of a phlegmatic temperament, guided her
at the critical moment. His words had been casual, but her reception of
them charged them with seriousness almost before he was aware. A passing
impulse was crystallized by the coldness of her manner into a permanent
desire.

"If I were free to do it, I'd make you want to," he said.

She moved from him, walking rapidly into the deeper shelter of the
willows. The autumn sunlight, shining through the leafless boughs, cast
a delicate netting of shadows over the brilliant fairness of her body.
He saw the rose of her cheek melting into the warm whiteness of her
throat, which was encircled by two deliciously infantile creases of
flesh. To look at her led almost inevitably to the desire to touch her.

"Are you going without a word to me, Blossom?"

"I don't know what to say--you never seem to believe me."

"You know well enough what I want you to say--but you're frozen all
through, that's what's the matter."

"Good-bye, Mr. Jonathan."

"At what hour to-morrow, Blossom?"

She shook her head, softly obstinate.

"I mustn't mee