"You are tired of being kissed?" he said, one morning.
As she only smiled and made no answer, he did not for thirty-six hours offer to repeat the offence, and went with lowered looks, silent, impenetrable, when they were alone.
"Is it really so?" she burst out that second evening, after Julia and the rest went home. "Is it only when others are here that you are happy?"
"It's only when others are here that I can forget that there's a rhythm even in such love as ours."
"What do you mean by a rhythm?"
"A rise and a fall. A winter because there has been a summer."
"No, no, Ethan." Her voice rang piteously.
"I'm not blaming you, dear."
"Blaming me? I should think not." She spoke almost cavalierly.
"It's the same with the fortunes of love, I suppose," he went on, "as it is with the fortunes of families, of nations, creeds, crops." He laughed a little ironic laugh. "The very planets have a time of prosperity, a point of ascendancy reached, a time of failing, an ultimate—"