Page:The Sense of the Past (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/45

 silence had again marked itself, as if he had seen a vulgar bribe fall flat; and he was equally aware that what he next said deepened this appearance. "Of course there's nothing of that sort that can mean much to you to-day. You've seen everything again and again."

"Oh," she answered at last, "I've seen a great deal. But not what you will. You'll know so much better how. You've work cut out, but you're to be envied."

He put out his hand to her. "Good-bye—till next year."

For a moment she kept it. "Why do you talk so foolishly?"

"I say nothing more foolish than that I shall by that time see you again."

At this she slowly released him. "Of course it will be comparatively easy for you, but it won't really be worth your while to come back to spite me."

"I shall come back," said Ralph, "because I shall want to."

She had another of those weighted headshakes which, as if determined less from within than from without, suggested the perfect working of her beauty rather than that of her thought. "No—it's there that you're wrong and that I'm so right. I'm not such an idiot as not to know that there will always be a steamer and that you can always pay your passage. When I said that if you go 31