No—he must be sane. Just because this moment seemed the only thing in the world worth holding to, just because he wanted to stay in this dream-world, just because he cared about nothing else, he must fight his way back to reality. He must not surrender. This was the test: whether he could be a sane man, or must spend his whole life in the following of disconnected impulses, a vagabond and a fool. He wanted to keep this beauty: well, then, he must give it up. They had stopped again, at the other corner. Phyllis regarded him quietly with troubled eyes. “Rose-Ann....” she said. “Yes. I know. Rose-Ann. And everything.” “No. We can’t,” she said. “No. We mustn’t.” They looked at each other bravely, and a little pitifully, and recommenced their silent promenade along the deserted street. At the door, she stopped firmly, and held out her hand. “You must go,” she said. “Good night. I’m—glad, in spite of everything. Good night.” He held her hand in his, desperately anxious to keep this moment’s beauty a little longer, before he returned to the world of reality. “Will you—kiss me?” he asked. She shook her head. “Not even in good-bye?” he urged. She laughed, with a sudden resumption of lightness. “A good-bye kiss? There’s no such thing, Felix! A kiss is always the beginning of things.—Good night!” She held his hand a moment, and added in the most friendly way, as if they were almost strangers, “I shall see you at the ball tomorrow night?” 2 He turned away, glad that she had been so sane—and sorry. Angry at her, for no reason. Happy that he was going home to Rose-Ann—to Rose-Ann, lovely and real now in his mind—out of all this madness! He commenced to whistle tunelessly.... And then, as if brought by the night-breeze, a breath of dream-nostalgia overwhelmed him, making him dizzy and faint. He stopped, trembling all over.... By God, he must get over this.... He must get back to reality. And Rose-Ann must help him. He would tell her everything.... He opened the door of the studio and cried out her name, like a frightened child come back to its mother. “Yes?” she called back. She was sitting up in bed, sewing spangles on her costume for the ball tomorrow night. He suddenly realized that everything was all right—that there was nothing to tell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XLIX. A Matter of Convention 1 NO—nothing to tell!... They talked about the ball, and the costumes they were to wear; and in the profound reassuring consciousness that life is something that need only be lived, that need not be discussed and understood, he fell asleep.