pictured a youth in a gay uniform looking down at her with ardent
eyes as he skated by her side through the crisp still air, while the
ice sang a high clear song beneath their feet in accompaniment to
his hurried laughing words of protestation. He seemed to touch life
lightly and to anticipate nothing but happiness. In truth, it was
difficult to be tragic on such a morning.

These were the heedless days of the beginning of the century, when
men not only threw away their lives, but played ducks-and-drakes
with their chances of happiness in a manner quite incomprehensible
to the careful method of human thought to-day. Charles Darragon
lived only in the present moment. He was in love with her. Desiree
must marry him.

It was quite different from what she had anticipated. She had
looked forward to such a moment with a secret misgiving. The
abstract person of her thoughts had always inspired her with a
painful shyness and an indefinite, breathless fear. But the lover
who was here now in the flesh by her side inspired none of these
feelings. On the contrary, she felt easy and natural and quite at
home with him. There was nothing alarming about his flushed face
and laughing eyes. She was not at all afraid of him. She even felt
in some vague way older than he, though he had just told her that he
was twenty-five, and four years her senior.

She accepted the violets which he had hurriedly bought for her as he
came through the Langenmarkt, but she would not say that she loved
him, because she did not. She was in most ways quite a matter-of-
fact person, and she was of an honest mind. She said she would
think about it. She did not love him now--she knew that. She could