“The thing that was on my mind this morning was ... yes, I think it was fear. Can you keep serious for a moment? Can you try to understand me so far as to forget for a moment--not what you believe, for you believe in nothing--but just that very fact that you believe in nothing? I didn’t believe in anything either; I believed that I didn’t believe in anything--not in anything but ourselves, in you, in me, in what I am when I am with you, in what, thanks to you, I am going to become....” “Robert will be here at seven,” interrupted Lilian. “I don’t want to hurry you; but if you don’t get on a little quicker, he’ll interrupt you just at the very moment you are beginning to get interesting. I don’t suppose you’ll want to go on when he’s here. It’s odd that you should think it necessary to take so many precautions to-day. You remind me of a blind man, who has first to feel every spot with his stick, before he puts his foot on it. And yet you can see I’m keeping quite serious. Why haven’t you more confidence?” “Ever since I’ve known you, my confidence has become extraordinary,” went on Vincent. “I’m capable of great things, I feel it; and you see that everything I do turns out successful. But that’s exactly what terrifies me. No; be quiet.... All day long I’ve kept thinking of what you told me this morning about the wreck of the _Bourgogne_, and of the people who wanted to get into the boat having their hands cut off. It seems to me that something wants to get into my boat--I’m using your image, so that you may understand me--something that I want to prevent getting in....” “And you want me to help you drown it.... You old coward!” He went on without looking at her: “Something I keep off, but whose voice I hear ... a voice you have never heard, that I listened to in my childhood....” “And what does your voice say? You don’t dare tell me. I’m not surprised. I bet there’s a dash of the catechism in it, isn’t there?” “Oh, Lilian, try to understand; the only way for me to get rid of these thoughts is to tell them to you. If you laugh at them, I shall keep them to myself and they’ll poison me.” “Tell away then,” said she with an air of resignation. Then, as he kept silent and hid his face like a child in Lilian’s skirts: “Well, what are you waiting for?” She seized him by the hair and forced him to raise his head: