In her present attitude towards life, nothing mattered except the present reality, the satisfaction of the moment; her present conception of life only counselled sacrifice of personal desires for the sake of larger desires. But these larger satisfactions did not differ in kind from the lesser, and all went the same way, the pleasure we take in a bunch of violets, or that which a love story brings, and both pass, but one leaves neither remorse nor bitterness behind. A thought told her that she was, while in the midst of these moral reflections, preparing herself to be Ulick's mistress. She denied the thought and put it behind her angrily, attributing its intrusion to her nerves, and to separate herself from it she allowed thoughts on the mutability of things to again exclusively occupy her. If she were to get up from the sofa she would create another division in her life, and to-morrow she would not remember her mood of to-day; it would have vanished as if it had never been. She asked, What do we live for? and rose nervously from the sofa, and then stood still. That half-hour was now behind her; again her place in life had been shifted. Yesterday, too, was gone, and with it the pleasure of her walk with Ulick. She had walked with him yesterday in the Green Park, in the still crystal evening. She could almost see the two figures, she could see them at one spot, but if she looked too long they disappeared from her eyes. She remembered nothing of what they had said, only that the colour of the evening was pale blue, with a little east wind in it, and that was yesterday! They had talked and walked, and been tremulously interested in each other; but she remembered nothing that had been said until they turned to go home. Then arose an exact vision of herself and Ulick walking under the graceful trees which overhung the Piccadilly railings. There the park had been shaped into little dells, and it had reminded her of the picture in the Dulwich Gallery. There his pleading was more passionate. He had begged her to go away with him, and she had had to answer that she could not give Owen up. She had felt that it was better to speak frankly, though she was sorry to have to say things that would give him pain. She had told him the truth, and was glad she had done so, but she liked him very much, and had said it was a pity they had not met earlier. "I missed you by about a year," he answered. His words came back to her, and she wondered if there was a cause for the accident, and if it could have been predicted. They had walked slowly up the pathways, and seeing the young summer in the sky and trees, they had walked as upon air, borne up by the sadness of finding themselves divided. They had thought of what forms and colours their lives would have taken if she had waited a few months, if she had not gone away with Owen; or, better still, if she had never met Owen. She was conscious that such