"Yes, it would be difficult to kiss you. I would become sad with memory of other kisses. Because you are young--as I was then." "Was it long ago?" "Things that end are always long ago." "Then it was only yesterday." "Yes, yesterday," he laughed, pleased with the ironic sound of his voice. "And what is longer ago than yesterday?" She had risen and stood before him, an almost boyish figure with her fists clenched. "I have something else I am in love with," she whispered. "I am in love with----" "The wonderful revolution, I know." "Yes." "And some day in the future you, too, will look into a mirror and see not yourself but a glowing-faced girl that was in love with what was once called the revolution." "But if things end it is only because we are too weak to hold them forever. So while we are strong we must hold them twice as eagerly." "Sad. All most deplorably sad, Mathilde. Hands shuffle us into new combinations, when we would prefer the old. Thus you, too, will some day listen to the cry that rises from all endings." "You are designing. You wish to make me sad, Mr. Dorn. And succeed." "Only that I may contemplate the futility of your love and smile. As I cannot quite smile at my own. We do not smile easily at corpses." His hands covered her fingers gently. "I will give myself to you, if you wish," she whispered. "And I prefer you like this," he smiled. "If you will come close to me and lay your head against me." He looked down at her as she obeyed. "There is an odor to your hair. And your cheek is soft. These things are similar things. You are almost like a phantom." "Of her." "No. She is forgotten. It's something else. A phantom of something that once lived in me, and died. It comes back and stares at me sometimes out of the eyes of strange women, out of the sounds of music. Now, out of your hair." "And you do not want me, Erik?" "I want you. But I prefer to amuse myself by fancying that you are unattainable." "I've liked you, Erik. The rest does not matter to me. I grew old during the war, and careless. My father and two brothers died. And another man." "So we both need diversion." "Yes." "Diversion," he murmured, "the little drug. But what is there to drugs? No, come; we are lovers now." "We will go to Munich together." "Yes." "And will you carry the money for Levine? They would never search you and they might recognize and search me. And besides, von Stinnes would not dare interfere if it was you, even if he is a spy, because he likes you too well." Her voice had become eager and vibrant. Dorn smiled ruefully, the faint mist of a sigh in his thought. The girl had worked adroitly. Of course, he was someone to carry the money to the Munich radicals.