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was to him to make the point that he had not always dis-
gusted her.
‘I can’t reconcile myself to it either, and it’s not the state
of things that ought to exist between us. If you’d only try to
banish me from your mind for a few months we should be
on good terms again.’
‘I see. If I should cease to think of you at all for a pre-
scribed time, I should find I could keep it up indefinitely.’
‘Indefinitely is more than I ask. It’s more even than I
should like.’
‘You know that what you ask is impossible,’ said the
young man, taking his adjective for granted in a manner
she found irritating.
‘Aren’t you capable of making a calculated effort?’ she
demanded. ‘You’re strong for everything else; why shouldn’t
you be strong for that?’
‘An effort calculated for what?’ And then as she hung fire,
‘I’m capable of nothing with regard to you,’ he went on, ‘but
just of being infernally in love with you. If one’s strong one
loves only the more strongly.’
‘There’s a good deal in that”; and indeed our young lady
felt the force of it—felt it thrown off, into the vast of truth
and poetry, as practically a bait to her imagination. But she
promptly came round. ‘Think of me or not, as you find most
possible; only leave me alone.’
‘Until when?’
‘Well, for a year or two.’
‘Which do you mean? Between one year and two there’s
all the difference in the world.’

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