"Do you realize, Suzanne, that you have violated the treaty? You’ve talked sociology and socialism. Now—I’m free..." "Oh! Please don’t!" she interrupted. "Not now. We must hurry to dinner." I got up laughing and we walked in silence, between the great trees, in the falling dusk, back to the Hotel de la Palette. The joviality of that troupe of young artists forced us to talk of trivial things. After supper we stood for a moment in the doorway. Behind us was noisy gayety, before us the full moon illumined the gray walls of the citadel, shone enticingly on a quiet reach of the river. "Come," I said. "Let’s go down to the bridge—the water will be gorgeous in this light." For a moment she hung back reluctantly; then suddenly consented. But in the village, she wasted much time looking for the house where Napoleon had slept in hiding on his return from Elba. When we came at last to the bridge she clambered up on the parapet. I leaned against it beside her. The light on the river was gorgeous. Although there was no wind for us to feel, the great clouds overhead were driven about like rudderless ships in a tempest. For a moment the moon would be hidden, leaving us in utter darkness, the next it would break out, its glory bringing to life all the details of the picturesque old houses by the riverside. Suzanne made one or two barren attempts at conversation. At last I plunged into the real business of the moment. "Of course," I began, "if you really wish it, I will postpone this till we get to Paris." There was a perceptible tightening of her muscles—a bracing. But she did not speak. If I was eloquent that night, persuasive, it was because I did not plead for myself, but for love. It is sometimes said that love is egoistic, subjective, to me it seems the most objective thing in the world. It is—at its grandest—I think, a complete surrender to the ultimate bigness of life. Without love we have nothing to fight for except our little personalities, no better occupation than to magnify our individuality. Love shows us bigger things. At least it was this I tried to tell Suzanne. She had looked on love as a disturbing element in life. I tried to show it to her as the goal, the apotheosis of life. It seems to me, as I look back on it now, that I was hardly thinking of Suzanne—not at all of my desire for her. I was talking to something further away than she, perhaps to the moon. I was trying desperately to formulate a faith—to give voice to a belief. And then she laid her hand on mine—and I forgot the moon. I saw only the glory of her face, different from what I had ever seen it. It was paler than usual and dreamy. It seemed surprisingly near to me. When I kissed her, she did not turn away. Suddenly it rained.