broken, but long afterwards he would see that no such merciful thing had
happened, and marvel how the cord of suffering can be strained to
breaking-point and kept taut, yet never snap. He was yet to learn that
no pain is unbearable, for the simple reason that it has to be borne.

"There's nothing to blame yourself about," he said. "You've given me the
most beautiful things to remember, and it's not your fault you can't
give more. When I think of what you are and what I have to offer I feel
I couldn't let you give more even if you would...." Always unfluent of
speech, he stopped abruptly, while a wheel of thought whirred round so
swiftly in his brain that he only caught a blurred impression. Ishmael
had had, perforce, to live as far as his mental life went in a world of
books, and with a vague resentment he felt that books had not played him
fair. Surely he had read, many times, of women who had thought the world
well lost for love--the hackneyed expression came so readily to him.
"She cares for me," he thought, with an odd mingling of triumph and
pain, "only she doesn't care enough. It's a half-shade, and the books
don't prepare one for the half-shades. Nobody can love without a
flaw--we all fail each other somewhere; it's like no one being quite
good or quite bad: nothing is black or white, but just varying tones of
grey. They make life damned difficult, the half-shades!"

Giving his shoulders a little shake, he turned to Blanche. "I must go,"
he said gently. "Good-bye, Blanche!"

She held out both her hands, and he took them in his, repeating,
"Good-bye, Blanche!"

Then she made her only mistake; she swayed towards him, her face held up
to his in a last invitation. Roughly he put her hands away.