She talked of the thousand trivialities that go to make the conversation between a man and a woman. Thornton lay silently, stretched on the warm leaves at her feet, feeling her bloodless face with its sharp blue veining. Each was conscious of a dynamic something in the air; their minds had a frank understanding while the talk skipped in and out among nothings. When she began once more to talk of the sea that lay down there beyond the green meadows and the blue haze, a faint rose-color of animation darted over the pallor and made the moist eyes flash. The sea! That stood in her mind for the mysteries of change, of the unknown. Thornton knew that this wistfulness after change had nothing definite in it, was merely a girl's hunger for motion; yet that had divided her in his mind from her kind. "There is a world beyond," she murmured, in wondering repetition of his words. The branches of the nut-trees swayed in the odorous wind as if whispering, "Yes, yes, we know of it. That world beyond ... over the hills of flesh, and the tedious wastes of tired bodies, there _is_ a world of peace beyond!" Her eyes came to his face wistfully. He held the keys of that beyond.... Something had snapped in his well-ordered mechanism, and he was going, going, drifting will-lessly into feeling and longing. And the next moment he held her, looking into a face that burned with love. There were no words. Life had been too strong for his little plans; it had mocked him and driven him passionward, like a bit of straw caught in a gale. The hours swam on unheeded, while they rested there face to face. Then came the going home across the afternoon woods; she silent and content, he trying to account for himself. When he had speculated about such matters, he had seen himself discussing, quite properly, the serious affairs of life with some tall girl of distinguished carriage, some one of the many young women whose acquaintance had made up his Boston parties. He had expected that their conversation would grow more serious as this intimacy deepened, and that at last, having found themselves of one accord on the sober ideals of life, he should broach to her this final proposition involving both their lives. He had half imagined such a situation with several fine young women; the scene had always been played out in a drawing-room filled with bric-a-brac and heavy hangings, he in his long black afternoon coat. There had been a touch of solemnity in it, a weighty sense of responsibility that would have made their first kiss a little sepulchral.