r the
sacrifice you make for me I'll do more for you than ever was done for a
woman before."

"Renounce after to-night? Do you call that a plan?" she asked. "Those
are old words and very foolish ones--you wanted something of that sort a
year ago."

"Oh I fluttered round the idea at that time; we were talking in the air.
I didn't really believe I could make you see it then, and certainly you
didn't see it. My own future, moreover, wasn't definite to me. I didn't
know what I could offer you. But these last months have made a
difference--I do know now. Now what I say is deliberate--It's deeply
meditated. I simply can't live without you, and I hold that together we
may do great things."

She seemed to wonder. "What sort of things?"

"The things of my profession, of my life, the things one does for one's
country, the responsibility and the honour of great affairs; deeply
fascinating when one's immersed in them, and more exciting really--put
them even at that--than the excitements of the theatre. Care for me only
a little and you'll see what they are, they'll take hold of you. Believe
me, believe me," Peter pleaded; "every fibre of my being trembles in
what I say to you."

"You admitted yesterday it wouldn't do," she made answer. "Where were
the fibres of your being then?"

"They throbbed in me even more than now, and I was trying, like an ass,
not to feel them. Where was this evening yesterday--where were the
maddening hours I've just spent? Ah you're the perfection of
perfections, and as I sat there to-night you taught me what I really
want."

"The perfection of perfections?" the girl echoed with the strangest
smile.

"I needn't try to tell you: you must have felt to-night with such
rapture what you are, what you can do. How can I give that up?" he
piteously went on.

"How can _I_, my poor friend? I like your plans and your
responsibilities and your great affairs, as you call them. _Voyons_,
they're infantile. I've just shown that I'm a perfection of perfections:
therefore it's just the moment to 'renounce,' as you gracefully say? Oh
I was sure, I was sure!" And Miriam paused, resting eyes at once lighted
and troubled on him as in the effort to think of some arrangement that
would help him out of his absurdity. "I was sure, I mean, that if you
did come your poor, dear, doting brain would be quite confused," she
presently pursued. "I can't be a muff in public just for you,
_pourtant_. Dear me, why do you like u