Marie was in the background, wanting a lover again. When they had gone she drew back the curtains, threw up the windows, and leaned out into the sweet, chill spring night. She drank it and loved it, and all her being cried out for love. But she did not want love grown old, which came in and put on its slippers, and grumped: "Can't those kids keep quiet?" if it heard the voice of the children of love, and which hid itself behind a hedge of daily paper, or flung out again from home, in the ill-tempered senility of its second childhood. She wanted love new-grown; with a bloom upon it, fresh and young; love at its beginning, before it was ripe and over-ripe, and spoiling and falling from its tree; such a love as she imagined Julia and Desmond even then to be driving towards. In a taxicab--for where else in all London could he be alone with her?--Rokeby was taking Julia home. She allowed it in spite of herself; yet was angry with them both for the circumstance which brought them together close, which enclosed them in a privacy which made her remember, with a vividness which disturbed her, the sensations of that first and only kiss. He was asking her again: "Haven't you changed your mind, Julia? Can't you relent?" "You know what I think about marrying." "I thought I did. But to-night when I looked at you looking at those kids, I knew differently. You want to be married and have children of your own. I don't know as much about me--don't know," he said in a slight break of despair, "that I come into the picture much." It was dark enough to hide her flush. "When I ask 'Can't you relent'?" said Rokeby, "I ought to say instead 'Can't you confess?' That's what you don't want to do." "If--" she began. "Yes, dear. If?" "If I married you--" She paused a long while and he declared passionately: "You're afraid to risk marriage and yet you want to. You don't know what to do. You like being loved; you pretend you don't, but you do. You're feeling how sweet it all is. But you will not own it even to yourself." And she answered: "I am afraid." "I know you are," said Rokeby; "and so am I. Haven't you thought of that?" "What do you mean?" "Why, look around and see the muddle and mess most people make of the contract." "That's what I mean." "So do I. Why shouldn't I be afraid as much as you are? If we got married and muddled and messed things up, wouldn't it hurt me as much as you?" "Not according to what I've seen. Most men--" "I'm not most men. I'm just me. You're you. We're different. Besides, we've seen and thought and argued it out to ourselves as well as together. Couldn't you risk it?" "You know what I want; complete freedom." "Well, you should have it. And you know what I want?" "Yes?" "Complete freedom, too." "Oh?" she said uncertainly, with a jealous note in her voice. He laughed. "Couldn't I have it, then? Well, to tell you a secret, you couldn't either. But another secret is that, probably, neither of us would really want it."