I seized his left arm, and gently pulled it down from his face.  Oh, exquisite moment!

’It was brave of you to tell me—­very brave!  I loved you for telling me.  You were quite wrong about the end of that book.  You didn’t see the fine point of it, and you never would have seen it—­and I liked you, somehow, for not seeing it, because it was so feminine—­but I altered the book to please you, and when I had altered it, against my conscience, I loved you more.’

‘It’s incredible! incredible!’ he muttered, half to himself.  ’I never hoped till lately that you would care for me.  I never dared to think of such a thing.  I knew you oughtn’t to!  It passes comprehension.’

‘That is just what love does,’ I said.

‘No, no,’ he went on quickly; ’you don’t understand; you can’t understand my feelings when I began to suspect, about two months ago, that, after all, the incredible had happened.  I’m nothing but your publisher.  I can’t talk.  I can’t write.  I can’t play.  I can’t do anything.  And look at the men you have here!  I’ve sometimes wondered how often you’ve been besieged—­’

‘None of them was like you,’ I said.  ’Perhaps that is why I have always kept them off.’

I raised my eyes and lips, and he stooped and kissed me.  He wanted to take me in his arms again, but I would not yield myself.

‘Be reasonable,’ I urged him.  ‘Ought we not to think of our situation?’

He loosed me, stammering apologies, abasing himself.

‘I ought to leave you, I ought never to see you again.’  He spoke roughly.  ‘What am I doing to you?  You who are so innocent and pure!’

‘I entreat you not to talk like that,’ I gasped, reddening.

‘But I must talk like that,’ he insisted.  ’I must talk like that.  You had everything that a woman can desire, and I come into your life and offer you—­what?’

‘I have everything a woman can desire,’ I corrected him softly.

‘Angel!’ he breathed.  ’If I bring you disaster, you will forgive me, won’t you?’

‘My happiness will only cease with your love,’ I said.

‘Happiness!’ he repeated.  ’I have never been so happy as I am now; but such happiness is terrible.  It seems to me impossible that such happiness can last.’

‘Faint heart!’ I chided him.

‘It is for you I tremble,’ he said.  ‘If—­if—­’ He stopped.  ’My darling, forgive me!’

How I pitied him!  How I enveloped him in an effluent sympathy that rushed warm from my heart!  He accused himself of having disturbed my existence.  Whereas, was it not I who had disturbed his?  He had fought against me, I knew well, but fate had ordained his defeat.  He had been swept away; he had been captured; he had been caught in a snare of the high gods.  And he was begging forgiveness, he who alone had made my life worth living!  I wanted to kneel before him, to worship him, to dry his tears with my hair.  I swear that my feelings were as much those of a mother as of a lover.  He was ten years older than me, and yet he seemed boyish, and I an aged woman full of experience, as he sat there opposite to me with his wide, melancholy eyes and restless mouth.