begged her to consider the protest he had once uttered as merely a
jest, perhaps even an ill-considered one. But she said: "Let be, it
is as well."

They conversed, as they had often done, of the perished days of their
old love. They spoke like two beings who have long conquered all the
struggles of the heart and who, in the calm harbour of friendship,
regard with equanimity the storms which they have weathered.

This way of speaking had gradually, and with a kind of jocular
moroseness, crept into their intercourse. The exciting thing about it
was the silent reservation felt by both: We know how different things
could be, so soon as we desired. To-day, for the first time, this
game at renunciation seemed to become serious.

"How strange!" he thought. "Here we sit who are dearest to each other
in all the world and a kind of futile arrogance drives us farther and
farther apart."

Alice arose.

He kissed her, as was his wont, upon hand and forehead and noted how
she turned aside with a slight shiver. Then suddenly she took his head
in both her hands and kissed him full on the lips with a kind of
desperate eagerness.

"Ah," he cried, "what is that? It's more than I have a right to
expect."

"Forgive me," she said, withdrawing herself at once. "We're poverty