Page:Twilight of the Souls (1917).djvu/234

226 "I'm not angry. So this evening was the last time?"

"Yes," she said.

They both looked at each other and both read in each other's eyes the memory of their last embrace: the stimulus of despair.

"Very well," he repeated, more gently.

"Good-bye, Gerrit."

"Good-bye, child."

She kissed him and he her. He was ready to go. Suddenly he remembered that he had never given her anything except on that first evening in the Woods, a ten-guilder piece and two rixdollars:

"Pauline," he said, "I should like to give you something. I should like to send you something. What may I give you?"

"I don't mind having something . . . but then you mustn't refuse it me. . . ."

"Unless it's impossible. . . ."

"If it's not possible . . . then I won't have anything."

"What is it you'd like?"

"You're sure to have a photograph . . . a group . . . of your children. . . ."

"Do you want that?" he asked, in surprise.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know; I'd like it."

"A photograph of my children?"