"This is finality?"
"It is."
"Eh, well; then I must continue on to the end."
She interpreted this as a plaint of his coming loneliness.
"Here!" she said. She held in her hands two red roses. She thrust one toward him. "That is all I may give you."
For a moment he hesitated. There were thorns, invisible and stinging.
"Take it!"
He accepted it, kissed it gravely, and hid it.
"This is the bitterest moment in my life, and doubly bitter because I love you."
When the portiere fell behind him, she locked her hands, grieving that all she could give him was an ephemeral flower. How many men had turned from her in this wise, even as she began to depend upon them for their friendships! The dark room oppressed her and she stepped out once more into the silver of moonshine. Have you ever beheld a lovely woman fondle a lovely rose? She drew it, pendent on its slender stem, slowly across her lips, her eyes shining mistily with waking dreams. She breathed in the perfume, then cupped the flower in the palm of her hand and pressed it again and again to her lips. A long white arm stretched outward and upward toward the moon, and when it withdrew the hand was empty.