aw me
back or go tumbling over with me. That's why you're here. I told you
that. Are you really so young that you don't understand?"

"I'm a kid, I'm a kid," she cried out, going back to her old excuse.
"That's the trouble."

"Then I'll put it into plain words," he said, with the same appalling
composure. "I've had these things in my mind to say to you for hours. I
can repeat them like a parrot. If the sort of unimaginative people who
measure everybody by themselves were to hear what I'm going to say, I
suppose they would think I'm insane. But you won't. You have
imagination. You've seen me in every stage of what I call the Great
Emotion. But you've not treated me well, Joan, or taken me seriously,
and this is the one serious thing of my life."

He was still under control, although his voice had begun to shake and
his hands to tremble. She could do nothing but wait for him to go on.
The crickets and the frogs filled in the short silence.

"And now it's come to this. I can be played with no longer. I can't
wait for you any more. Either you love me, or you don't. If you do, you
must be as serious as I am, tear up your roots such as they are and
come away with me. Your husband, who counts for as little as my wife,
will set the law in action. So will Alice. We will wander among any
places that take your fancy until we can be married and then if you
want to come back, we will. But if you don't and won't love me, I can't
live and see you love any other man. I look upon you as mine. I created
you for myself ten years ago. Not being able to live without you, I am
not made of the stuff to leave you behind me. I shall take you and if
there's another life on the other side, live it with you. If not, then
we'll snuff out together. Like all great lovers, I'm selfish, you see.
That's what I meant when I talked just now about choice."

He moved away, quietly, and piled several cushions into a corner of one
of the pews. The look of exaltation was on his face again.

"Sit here, my dream girl," he added, with the most wonderful
tenderness, "and think it over. Don't hurry. The night belongs to us."
He found a match and lit a cigarette and stood at one of the windows
looking out at the stars.

But Joan was unable to move. Her blood was as cold as ice. As though a
searchlight had suddenly been thrown on to Gilbert, she saw him as he
was. "Unimaginative people will think I'm insane." ... SHE didn't think
he was insane, imaginative as