'Nothing, mamma, never mind! you only wait. We must both wait a
little. Don't ask me anything till to-morrow--and let us sort the
cherries before the sun has set.'

'But you will be reasonable?'

'Oh, I'm very reasonable!' Gemma shook her head significantly. She
began to make up little bunches of cherries, holding them high above
her flushed face. She did not wipe away her tears; they had dried of
themselves.




XXV


Almost running, Sanin returned to his hotel room. He felt, he knew
that only there, only by himself, would it be clear to him at last
what was the matter, what was happening to him. And so it was;
directly he had got inside his room, directly he had sat down to the
writing-table, with both elbows on the table and both hands pressed to
his face, he cried in a sad and choked voice, 'I love her, love her
madly!' and he was all aglow within, like a fire when a thick layer
of dead ash has been suddenly blown off. An instant more ... and he
was utterly unable to understand how he could have sat beside her
... her!--and talked to her and not have felt that he worshipped the
very hem of her garment, that he was ready as young people express
it 'to die at her feet.' The last interview in the garden had decided
everything. Now when he thought of her, she did not appear to him with