She impulsively felt for his hand, and pushed her own into it. "Don't say another word, Gerald. I daresn't do what you wish, I just daresn't. I'm plain scared to! And I'm such a fool that I'm nearer to it this minute than I like to be by a long sight. I'm fond enough of you for almost anything, and you know it, but I must keep my level head. It can't be done--a greyhound tied down to a mudturtle. I know what I'm like,--no disparagement meant, Mrs. Hawthorne,--and what you're like, and I won't let myself forget. I'm looking out first of all for myself, but I'm looking out for you, too, dear boy. Don't say any more about it to-night, Gerald, please, with the stars shining like that, and the air so sweet that all the fairy-tales you ever heard seem possible. I want to keep solid earth under my feet." Gerald was not so devoid of the right masculine spark as not to recognize the moment for one of which advantage should be taken by any creature capable of growing a mustache. The thing to be done was to put his arms around her like a man, and lay his head on her shoulder like a child, and treat as not existing the barriers which she described as dividing them. Often enough in his life Gerald had wished he might have been a masterful man, capable of the like things. But already a vague sickness of soul had succeeded his momentarily dominant mood. Distrust filled him--of his own character, his aims, his talent, his health, and his destiny. His dreams had but recently taken the form in which he had that day expressed them; he had not grown into them. Under the depressing effect of failure he was no more sure than she had professed to be that the proposed union would not be a rash mistake. He saw the wisdom of a return to his gray policy of wanting nothing, asking nothing. Heaviness possessed him; he made no motion. Signs of the nearing city came thicker and thicker; the street lamps became frequent and consecutive. Aurora sat up and composed her appearance. The lighted house-fronts threw back the skies to inexpressible altitudes. She continued aloud for Gerald to hear a conversation she had been holding mentally: