Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me those flowers, Dora." She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told him, her voice not very easy. He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned. He was clumsy, for his hand trembled--the other still had hers. He was clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain--new to him, fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed within his eyes. She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she said. He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then he placed them where the rose had been--hers! hers! That she had plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her. She almost there. The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "--and late. I must be going in." He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her, moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and sought them; and he could hear his heart knock. So, without words--in silence that shouted louder than speech--they came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he knew his dismissal. His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a hundred press for speech. And strange--as between them--the words at last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man--wouldn't you?--with nothing--who just poked along and did nothing?" It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said. He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?" IV Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the last, the essential strategy.