Presently, by good luck, Georgia and her lover came upon a bench just as another couple was quitting it--the supply of benches being inadequate to the demands of pleasant evenings in spring. The departing two passed, one around each end of the seat, and walked rapidly, several feet apart, across the strip of lawn and bridal path beyond. They were delayed at the curb by the stream of automobiles and stood out in clear relief against the passing headlights. It was evident they had been quarreling, for the man looked sullen and the woman, half turned away, shrugged her shoulders to what he was saying. Georgia had been watching them. "Too bad," said she, "they're having a row." "Perhaps they're not meant for each other." "Everyone quarrels sometimes," she answered, "meant or not." "Do you think we would, if----" "I'm sure of it," she replied sharply. "We're human beings, not angels." There was doubtless common sense in what she said, but nevertheless it delighted him not. He wished that she could in such moments as these, yield herself fully to the illusion which possessed him that their life together would be one sempiternal climax of joy. "I honestly believe," he asserted solemnly, "that sometimes two natures are so perfectly adjusted that there is no friction between them." "Rubbish," she replied, quoting a newly read Shaw preface, "people aren't meant to stew in love from the cradle to the grave." She couldn't understand her own mood. She had arranged this evening with Stevens to tell him that she was ready to marry him, and she found herself unable to. Her conscious purpose was the same as ever. Yet as often as she summoned herself to look the look or keep the silence which would put in train his declaration, it seemed as if she received from her depths a sudden and imperative mandate against it. It was her long silence while she was pondering over these strange things which gave him a false cue and he entered to the center of her consciousness. "This wasting of ourselves must go on until he dies?" "The only way out is death," she said slowly, "or apostasy." "Apostasy!" The word had an ugly sound even for him. "I know one woman who did it for love of a man." "And she is happy?" Georgia did not answer at once. "And she is happy," he repeated seriously, as if much depended on the question, "or not?" "She says she is," she answered, "but I don't think so. She doesn't look happy--about the eyes--one notices those things. She seems changed--and--reckless and--and she's not always been faithful to her husband. I found it out." "You found it out!" "Yes, she asked me to go to a dinner party. Her husband was away from town--there were four of us--and I could tell what it meant. She wanted me to do what she was doing--and we had been friends so long--we took our first communion together." "Georgia," he asked, chilled through with fright, "do you often have that sort of thing put in your way?"