it was out of their inordinate desire for joy that they forewent joy.

"As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her): 'To
hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close. To yearn for you, and never
to have you, and so always to have you.' And she: 'For you to be always
just beyond my reach. To be ever attaining you, and yet never attaining
you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and always with
the first flush upon us.

"That is not the way they said it. On my lips their love-philosophy is
mangled. And who am I to delve into their soul-stuff? I am a frog, on the
dank edge of a great darkness, gazing goggle-eyed at the mystery and wonder
of their flaming souls.

"And they were right, as far as they went. Everything is good . . . as
long as it is unpossessed. Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they
run in span.

"'And time could only tutor us to eke
Our rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.'

"They got that from a sonnet of Alfred Austin's. It was called 'Love's
Wisdom.' It was the one kiss of Madeline de Maupin. How did it run?

"'Kiss we and part; no further can we go;
And better death than we from high to low
Should dwindle, or decline from strong to weak.'

"But they were wiser. They would not kiss and part. They would not kiss
at all, and thus they planned to stay at Love's topmost peak. They