"Now do be sensible," she said, trying to keep up a show of lightness, "and don't talk such nonsense any more; for nonsense it is, whether said in fun or in deep earnest. Exactly what you need--a woman hanging round your neck who is five years older than you and soon will be altogether faded. Besides, you don't strike me as having been born to be a nurse, and you know I am slowly making my way graveward. So the matter's settled." That night she cried to herself. The next day his headache bothered him worse than ever. With her he was privileged to make himself comfortable, and he stretched out on the sofa, and she adjusted the cushions under his head. "Your hands are always so cool," he said. "In the days of old you sometimes used to stroke my forehead so soothingly. It did me no end of good. I have spoiled my chance for that form of happiness, too." She passed her shaking hand over his head and brow, and when she touched his cheek, he caught her fingers in both his hands. "Let them stay there," he said with a great sigh. "My cheeks are on fire." Her cheeks were burning, too. Christmas week went by, and the man and the woman drew still closer together in the solitude of their hearts. New Year's eve came, and they decided to wait up and greet the new year together. Hedwig was preparing the tea, and he was leaning back in an easy chair, smoking cigarettes and looking through the blue clouds at her housewifely ways. There was a rosy sheen on her cheeks and something like the promise of happiness glittering in her eyes. He felt so happy and yet so oppressed that he wanted to jump up and clasp her in his arms simply to lift the burden from his soul. She spoke little. She seemed occupied with her own thoughts, and he with his. At about eleven o'clock there was a noise on the street, and the red glow of smoking torches came through the window. It was a procession of masqueraders got up by a private society, a foretaste of the public carnival to follow. She opened the French window and they went out on the balcony, on which potted pomegranate-trees were in full bloom. It was a soft warm night, like our own nights in spring. The stars were sparkling, and a vague shimmer lay upon the ocean. As the giddy throng flowed past below them whistling and hooting and laughing, he felt her arm laid on his almost anxiously. "Aren't we standing here as on an isolated rock in mid-ocean?" he whispered. She nodded and pressed herself against him softly. "And yet have to remain strangers," he went on. She made no reply, and lowered her head to dip it into the mass of blossoms. He felt the quivering of her body. "Hedwig," he said softly. She shrank. It was the first time he had ever called her by her first name. "Hedwig." "What is it?"