out his own hand and took in it the slim gloved one
and looked down at it, as if it were something quite apart and
wonderful--rather as if hands were rare and he had not often seen one
before.

There was much sound of heavy traffic on the streets. The lumbering of
army motor trucks and vans, the hurry of ever-passing feet and vehicles,
changed the familiar old-time London roar, which had been as that of low
and distant thunder, into the louder rumbling of a storm which had drawn
nearer and was spending its fury within the city's streets themselves.
Just at this moment there arose the sound of some gigantic loaded thing,
passing with unearthly noises, and high above it pierced the shrilling
of fifes.

Robin glanced about the empty garden.

"The noise seems to shut us in. How deserted the Gardens look. I feel as
if we were in another world. We are shut in--and shut out," she
whispered.

He whispered also. He still looked down at the slim gloved hand as if it
had some important connection with the moment.

"We have so few minutes together," he said. "And I have thought of so
many things I must say to you. I cannot stop thinking about you. I think
of you even when I am obliged to think of something else at the same
time. I am in a sort of tumult every moment I am away from you." He
stopped suddenly and looked up. "I am speaking as if I had been with you
a score of times. I haven't, you know. I have only seen you once since
the dance. But it is as if we had met every day--and it's true--I am in
a sort of tumult. I think thousands of new things and I feel as if I
_must_ tell you of them all."

"I--think too," said Robin. Oh! the dark dew of her imploring eyes! Oh!
the beat of the little pulse he could actually see in her soft bare
throat. He did not even ask himself what the eyes implored for. They had
always looked like that--as if they were asking to be allowed to be
happy and to love all kind things on earth.

"One of the new things I cannot help thinking about--it's a queer thing
and I must tell you about it. It's not like me and yet it's the
strongest feeling I ever had. Since the War has changed everything and
everybody, all one's feelings have grown stronger. I never was furious
before--and I've been furious. I've felt savage. I've raged. And the
thing I'm thinking of is like a kind of obsession. It's this--" he
caught her hands again and held her face to face with him. "I--I want to
have you to myself," he e