e of you." She flung her arms about him, and then recoiled
from him in a sudden revulsion of feeling.

"When you go away I shall be miserable; I shall repent of all this ...
I'm horrid." She covered her face in her hands. "I didn't know I was
like this."

A moment after she reached out her hand to him saying--

"You're not angry with me? I can't help it if I'm like this. I should
like to go and see you; it would be so much to me. But I must not. But
why mustn't I?"

"I know no reason, except that you don't care for me."

"But you know that isn't so."

"Come, dearest, be reasonable. You're not going to stop here all your
life playing the viola da gamba. The hour of departure has come," he
said, perceiving her very thought; "be reasonable, come and see me
to-morrow. Come to lunch, and I'll arrange. You know that you--"

"Yes, I believe that," she said, in response to a change which had come
into her appreciation. "But can I trust myself? Suppose I did go away,
and repented and left you. Where should I go? I could not come back
here. Father would forgive me, I daresay, but I could not come back
here."

"'Repented,' Those are fairy tales," he said lifting her gold hair from
her ear and kissing it. "A woman does not leave the man who adores her."

"You told me they often did."

"How funny you are.... They do sometimes, but not because they repent."

Her head was on his shoulder, and she stood looking at him a long while
without speaking.

"Then you do love me, dearest? Tell me so again."

Kissing her gently on the mouth and eyes, he answered--

"You know very well that I do. Come and see me to-morrow. Say you will,
for I must go now."

"Go now!"

"Do you know what time it is? It is past seven."

She followed him to the gate of the little garden. The lamps were
lighted far away in the suburbs. Again he asked her to come and see him.

"I cannot to-morrow; to-morrow will be Sunday."

His footsteps echoed through the chill twilight, and seeing a thin moon
afloat like a feather in the sky, she thought of Omar's moon, that used
to seek the lovers in their garden, and that one evening sought one of
them in vain.

CHAPTER EIGHT

There was no other place except the picture gallery where they could see
each other alone. But the dignity of Velasquez and the opulence of
Rubens distracted their thoughts, and they were ill at ease on a
backless seat in front of a masterpiece. Owen regretted the Hobbema;