They went rushing up the crowded driveway, and on along the open Hudson, hour after hour. The man at her side, leaning forward eagerly, facing her, talked incessantly--talked to her as a man does only when he seeks to unfold all that he has to impress a woman. She answered correctly; she even heard phrases and repeated them mechanically, seeking to comprehend them. "You are more than life--you are youth itself. I don't know why--every reason--you attract me, but I know I'm groping for you! "Yes, it's youth, youth, a man like myself needs--the feeling of youth again, the daring of youth, impetuous, magnificent. That's what you can give me! "I'll give everything--not by half measures; I want you to know all I'm holding back. You'll know the greatest joy in the world, of sharing everything!" Once he took her hand. Then she turned, and without withdrawing the fingers, which felt no sensation, said: "Don't do that!" And he obeyed. She listened, seeking only the sadness in the sky, the melancholy of isolated and distant things. She knew her heart was broken, that nothing could ever exist for her again. No, never could she feel a palpitating joy; it would all be gray and brown--brown and gray as the worn hills about her, nature, which had forgot its May! And at the same time she listened, smiling and provocative, to this other man who passionately courted her, laying open his inner-most soul for her inspection--a man who proclaimed again and again that she drew him to her by the glow of her youth and the joy of life. That afternoon was like a phantasmagoria. Even he, at the end, noticed her mental numbness. "What's the matter with you?" he asked. She looked at him, smiling negation. "You seem crushed, as if I could stick a pin in you! What's wrong? Has that beast Sassoon insulted--?" She shook her head. Even this incongruity did not penetrate. "Listen!" he went on, retaining her hand as she started to descend. "I'm not a fool! I won't throw myself away on any woman! I'll play fair, too, and open. I don't want backing and pulling--I want things to be big, direct, honest! You know what I feel; you know what I'm capable of feeling! Don't you?" She smiled and nodded, without comprehending in the least. She was thinking, with a desperate longing, of the shelter of her room, still so far away. "Very well. I'm going to see you once more," he said abruptly. "Then it's for you to decide. If you want me to come,"--he hesitated to give full emphasis,--"it's for you to send for me!" She remembered the ultimatum afterward. Now she murmured something commonplace. He caught her hand. "Can't you tell me now?" "What?" she said, striving to recall his meaning. "Do you want me to come? Is it your wish?" "Why--yes, why not?" she answered mechanically--nor did she see what leaped into his eyes.