Conventionality demanded this little exchange of them, and to-day the empress sway of conventionality is rarely rebelled. Even, as here, when treading the path of love, the journey must constantly be stopped while handfuls of the sweet-smelling stuff are tossed about our persons. Neglect the duty and you must walk alone. For to neglect conventionality is like going abroad without clothes; the naked man appears. Now, nothing can be more utterly horrid to our senses than a stark woman or stark man walking down the street. We should certainly pull aside the blind to have a peep, and the more we could see of the nakedness the further would we crane our heads (provided no one was by to watch); but to go out and chat, to be seen in company with the naked creature, is another matter. We would sooner chop off our legs. So with the conventions. The fewer of them you wear, the more naked (that is to say, real) do you become. Eyes will poke at you round the blinds, but you must walk quickly past the gate, please. If you will not go through the machine and come out a nice smooth sausage, well, you must remain original flesh and gristle; but you will smell horrid in nice noses. Is it not warming, as you read this, to know perfectly well that you are not one of the sausages? V. When they had sufficiently daubed themselves, Margaret asked: “Shall I read the next verse? That was the imagery of our meeting; this of our parting.” Bill gulped. This man was fondling the scented tresses that trickled about his face; speech was a little difficult. She put her page beneath the moon; gave her voice to its rapture: “Our parting! Do you remember, dear, How Nature our folly knew? Mournful swish of the sobbing rain; Distant surge of the Deep in pain; Whispering wail of the wandering wind, Seeking, sobbing, a rest to find; Fitful gleam from a troubled sky (Nature weeping to see love die). Ah, love, when last we met! “It was a perfect day, really,” she said. “Very hot, and just before lunch, do you remember? But there, again, it is the _imagery_ of it as it seemed to our inner selves. It comes to one, and one is the _instrument_.” Bill's voice was hoarse. “Margaret, come down to me,” he said. “I dare not.” “You must. I must touch you--kiss you. You must come down!” “Bill, I dare not; I should be heard.” He bitted his next words as they came galloping up. Dare he give them rein? And then again he bathed in the ecstasy of the scene. The black square of the open window; the scented roses that framed it; the silver night that lit its picture--her dusky face between her streaming hair, her white arms, bare to where the pushed-back sleeves gave them to the soft breeze to kiss, the soft outline of her breast where the press of her weight drew close her gown. It was not to be borne. The bitted words lashed from his hold. He gasped: “Then I am coming up!”