The astonished and acute attention of her whole being was indefinably expressed by the silence in which she now listened. "I am going to keep away from you," he went on, "till I feel out of danger." "Why, what's the matter now?" she asked, with the vehemence of her surprise and disappointment. "A trifle, woman dear. Oh, Lord, I see I shall have to go into it! Haven't you the imagination to see, you unaccountable person, how an unhappy mortal might be affected by such circumstances as destiny so lately prepared for your poor servant's trying? Day by day, night after night, that insidious kindness, that penetrating gentleness, that stupefying atmosphere of a woman's care and sympathy.... Didn't you tell me once yourself--" Gerald's voice stiffened, and he pulled himself up again, discarding weakness,--"Didn't you once tell me yourself--in your impossible English, almost as bad as mine--that a sick man is 'liable to fall in love with his nurse?' And, dear girl, I will not do it. I categorically refuse. It is too horrible. I have done with all that. I have just managed to creep up on to the dry sand, and you ask me to embark again on those same waters. I will not do it. It is finished. That slavery! that unrest! and fever! and jealousy! No, not again. I have served my sentence. Too many times I have waked in the black of night and waited for daylight, wishing I had been dust for a hundred years. I know now that in order to have a little peace a person must not want anything. That is the price. We mustn't want anything, Aurora. We mustn't want anything, we mustn't mind anything, we mustn't care about anything, we must submit to everything!" This counsel of perfection came from Gerald almost in a sob. "We sha'n't be happy like that, naturally, but we sha'n't be too wretched for expression, either. It's the lesson of life. I have learned it, and I will not expose myself to the old chances again. 'He who loves for the first time is a god,' says the poet, 'but he who loves for the second time is a fool,' he goes on to say. And so, Aurora--" "You make me laugh!" exclaimed Aurora in a snort of simple scorn. "And so, Aurora, I am going to keep away from you for--I am not at the present moment quite able to say how long."