“My dear boy, it’s not different; I was no more a trifler than you are--I intended to marry Fluffy. I gave up a good woman--a good woman who’s waiting for me now. But I’m like that old man at Baveno; the unpossessable haunts me. I’ve been infatuated so long that I can’t break myself of the habit. But you haven’t. You’re young, with a life before you. For God’s sake go back to the simple good people--the people you understand. Your mother wasn’t a Desire, I’ll warrant; if she had been, you wouldn’t be her son. A man commits a crime against his children when he willfully stoops below his mother to the girl he worships. Desire’ll never belong to you, even though you marry her. She’s not of your flesh. Her pretty, baby hands’ll tear the wings off your idealism. She won’t even know she’s doing it. You’ve made your soul the purchase-price of love, while she--she commits sacrilege against love every hour.” He gripped him by the arm. “Cut loose from her while there’s time. She doesn’t know what you’re offering.” “Shish!” Mr. Dak was sitting up, a finger pressed against his mouth. Some one stirred behind them. In the middle of the room Desire was standing. Her hands were clasped against her breast as though she held a bird. Through the windows the purity of the snow-covered country formed a dazzling background for her head and shoulders. The gold in the bronze of her hair glistened. She might have been posing for a realist painting of the immaculate conception. There was a misty, pained looked in the grayness of her eyes--an eloquence of yearning. “Teddy.” That was all. It was the second time. It meant more than if she had held out her arms to him. Her clear, lazy voice, speaking his name, seemed to mark the end of evasion. He went to her without a word. There was the heat of tears behind his eyes and a swollen feeling in his heart. The passion she had roused in him at other times sank into gentleness. The things that Horace had been saying were true--he knew it; but if his love could reach her imagination, they would prove them false together. What was the good of love if it couldn’t do that? Probably Hal had thought to do the same for Vashti, and Horace for Fluffy--all the men who had loved in vain had promised themselves to do just that; but they hadn’t loved with sufficient obstinacy--with sufficient courage. He helped her into her wraps. They passed out into the gold and silver landscape. It was like entering into a new faith--like leaving deceit behind. Merriness was in the air. Birds fluttered out of hedges, making the snow glitter in their exit. From farms out of sight, roosters blew shrill challenges, like trumpeters riding through a Christmas faeryland. Humping their knees against the horizon, mountains lay hushed in their eternal rest. There was scarcely a sound save the crunch of their footsteps. At a turn, where the lane descended and the house was lost to sight, she drew closer. “You may take my arm if you like.”