"You do know! You are not the woman to mistake a passing interest for the real thing." "Oh, does a woman ever--I never wanted to be as young as _that_ again! I should have believed it impossible if I had given the matter a thought--It is so long! I had forgotten what love was like. There was nothing I had buried as deep. And there are reasons--reasons!" "I only follow you vaguely. But I think I understand--worse luck! I've hated you more than once. You must have known that. I believe you are deliberately leading me on to make a fool of myself." "I am not! Oh, I am not!" "_Do_ you love me?" "I--I want to be sure. I have dreamed . . . I--I have leisure, you see. This old house shuts out the world--Europe--the past. The war might have cut my life in two. If it had not been for that--that long selfless interval . . . I'd like you to go now." "Will you marry me?" "It may be. I can't tell. Not yet. Are you content to wait?" "I am not! But I've no intention of taking you by force, although I don't feel particularly civilized at the present moment. But I'll win you and have you if you love me. Make no doubt of that. You may have ten thousand strange reasons--they count for nothing with me. And I intend to see you every day. I'll call you up in the morning. Now I go, and as quickly as I can get out." XX He plunged down the steps into a snowstorm. Even during his precipitate retreat he had realized the advisability of telephoning for a taxi, but had been incapable of the anti-climax. He pulled his hat over his eyes, turned up the collar of his coat, and made his way hastily toward Park Avenue. There was not a cab in sight. Nor was there a rumble in the tunnel; no doubt the cars were snow-bound. He hesitated only a moment: it would hardly take him longer to walk to his hotel than to the Grand Central Station, but he crossed over to Madison Avenue at once, for it was bitter walking and there was a bare chance of picking up a cab returning from one of the hotels. But the narrow street between its high dark walls looked like a deserted mountain pass rapidly filling with snow. The tall street-lamps shed a sad and ghostly beam. They might have been the hooded torches of cave dwellers sheltering from enemies and the storm in those perpendicular fastnesses. Far down, a red sphere glowed dimly, exalting the illusion. He almost fancied he could see the out-posts of primeval forests bending over the canyon and wondered why the "Poet of Manhattan" had never immortalized a scene at once so sinister and so lovely.