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"I take ive you none! Why do you interfere! A--a girl's policy costs her so; whatever it costs it is worth it to me … And I do not love you In so short a ti So blinded her eyes, and she turned her head sharply, only to encounter his lips on hers in a deep, clinging eo now It is not best Oh! truly, truly it is all wrong with us now" She bent her head, blinded with tears, swaying, stunned; then, with a breathless sound, turned in his ar in his; and, confronting, they paused, suspending the crisis, young faces close, and hearts afire

"Sylvia, I love you"

For an instant their lips clung; she had rendered hih I loved you"

"Say it!"

"I do"

"Say it!"

"I--I cannot! … And it is no use--no use! I do not know myself--this way My eyes--are wet It is not like irl you hold so closely, so confidently … I do care for you--how can I help it? How could any woh?"

"Until you are a bride, yes"

"A bride? Stephen!--I cannot--"

"You cannot help it, Sylvia"

"I o"

"My way lies that way"

"No! no! I cannot do it; it is not best for ht me how to say it But--you knohat I have done--and irl like that?"

"Dear, I know the woman I love"

"Silly, she is what her life has made her--material, passionately selfish, unable to renounce the root of all evil … Even if this--this happiness were ours always--I ood enough, not noble enough, to forget what I ht have had, and put away … Is it not dreadful to admit it? Do you not know that self-contempt is part of the price? … I have no h for a s do'; I cannot 'contrive'; I will not cling to the fringe of things, or play that heartbreaking rôle of the shabby expatriated on the Continent … No person in this world ever had enough I tell you I could find use for every flake of metal ever mined! … You see you do not know e ht have been, h I care for learning--or ht, if I had tih for any question as to my dominance … Can you take me there?"