300 



The Review of Reviews. 



September 1. 1906. 



Or : " You've got the gift of the gab, young man. 

 We ought to ha' made a lawyer of you." 



But that afternoon, even in his eyes, I didn't 

 shine. Failing any other stimulus, he reverted to 

 my search for a situation, but even that did not 

 engage me. 



V. 



For a long time I feared I should have to go 

 back to Clayton without another word to Nettie. 

 She seemed insensible to the need I felt for a talk 

 with her, and I was thinking even of a sudden 

 demand for that before them all. It was a trans- 

 parent manoeuvre of her mother's, who had been 

 watching my face, that sent us out at last together 

 to do something — I forget now what — in one of the 

 greenhouses. Whatever that little mission may have 

 been it was the merest, most barefaced excuse, a 

 door to shut, or a window to close, and I don't 

 think it got done. 



Nettie hesitated and obeyed. She led the way 

 through one of the hothouses. It was a low, steamy^ 

 brick-floored alley between staging that bore a close 

 crowd of pots of fern, and behind big, branching 

 plants that were spread and nailed overhead so as 

 to make an impervious cover of leaves ; and in that 

 close, green privacy she stopped and turned on me 

 suddenly like a creature at bay. 



" Isn't the maidenhair fern lovely ?" she said, and 

 looked at me with eyes that said, " Now." 



" Nettie," I began, " I was a fool to write to vou 

 as I did." 



She startled me by the assent that flashed out 

 upon her face. But she said nothing, and stood 

 waiting. 



" Nettie," I plunged, " I can't do without you. I 

 — I love you." 



" If you love me," she said trimly, watching tne 

 white fingers she plunged among the green branches 

 of a selaginella, " could you write the things you 

 do to me?" 



" I don't mean them," I said. " At least not 

 al\va\s. " 



I thought really they were very good letters, and 

 that Nettie was stupid to think otherwise, but I was 

 for the moment clearly aware of the impossibility 

 of conveying that to her. 



" You ^vrote them." 



" But then I tramp seventeen miles to say I don't 

 mean them." 



" Yes. But perhaps you do." 



I think I was at a loss ; then I said, not verv 

 clearly. "I don't." 



" You think vou — you love me, Willie. But vou 

 don't." 



"I do. Nettie! You know I do." 



For answer she shook her head. 



I made what I thought was a most heroic plunge. 

 "Nettie," I said,. "I'd rather have you than — than 

 my own opinions." 



The selaginella still engaged her. " You think 

 so now,'' she said. 



I broke out into protestations. 



■■ No," she said shortly. " It's dififerent now.'' 



■' But why should two letters make so much dif- 

 ference ?" I said. 



'■ It isn't only the letters. But it is different. It's 

 different— for good." 



She halted a little with that sentence seeking 

 her expression. She looked up abruptly into my 

 eyes and moved, indeed slightly, but with the in- 

 timation that she thought our talk might end. 



But I did not mean it to end like that. 



'For good?' said I. "No! Nettie 1 Nettie! 

 You don't mean that !" 



'■ I do," she said deliberately, still looking at me, 

 and with all her pose conveying her finality. She 

 seemed to brace herself for the outbreak that must 

 follow. 



Of course I became wordy. But I did not sub- 

 merge her. She stood entrenched, firing her con- 

 tradictions like guns into my scattered, discursive 

 attack. I remember that our talk took the absurd 

 form of disputing whether I could be in love with 

 her or not. And there was I, present in evidence, 

 in a deepening and widening distress of soul be- 

 cause she could stand there, defensive, brighter and 

 prettier than ever and in some inexplicable way cut 

 off from me and inaccessible. 



You know we had never been together before 

 without enterprises of endearment, without a faintly 

 guilty, quite delightful excitement. 



I pleaded, I argued. I tried to show that even 

 my harsh and difficult letters came from my desire 

 to come wholly into contact with her. I made exag- 

 gerated, fine statements of the longing I felt for her 

 when I was away, of the shock and misery of finding 

 her estranged and cool. She looked at me, feeling 

 the feeling of my speech and impervious to its ideas. 

 I had no doubt — whatever poverty my words, coolly 

 written down now. might convey — that I was elo- 

 quent then. I meant most intensely what T said — 

 indeed, I was wholly concentrated upon it. I was 

 set upon conveying to her with absolute sinceritx 

 my sense of distance, and the greatness of my de- 

 sire. I toiled toward her painfully and obstinately 

 through a jungle of words. 



Her face changed very slowly — bv such imper- 

 ceptible degrees as when at dawn light comes into 

 a clear sky. I could feel that I touched her, that 

 her hardness was in some manner melting, her de- 

 termination softening towards hesitations. The 

 habit of an old familiarity lurked somewhere within 

 hier. But she would not let me reach her. 



" No," she cried abmptly, starring into motion. 



She laid a hand on my arm. A wonderful new 

 friendliness came into her voice. ' It's impossible, 

 Willie. Everything is different now — everything. 

 We made a mistake. We two young sillies made a 



