"Give it up," said he, shortly.
"I know," said Talbot. "I'll tell you. It was this," and her voice dropped as she spoke to a lower tone. "Last night I had made up my mind to die for you, Brooke."
Brooke drew a long breath. For an instant his eyes lowered. They caught the gaze which Talbot had fixed on him—deep, intense, unfathomable. It was but for a moment, and then it was as though he made a violent effort, and tore them away.
One of his hands caught at the other, and held it in a tight grip.
"Too much Talbot in that," he said at length, in a harsh voice. "If you go on dying for people, what'll become of you?"
"And now," continued Talbot, in a dreamy way—"now, when suspense and danger seem over, I am miserable—simply miserable, Brooke. Why should my mind have such strange alternations, feelings so contradictory, so unreasonable? I ought to be happy—why am I not?"
"Now," said Brooke, in the same harsh tone as before, "you're beginning to talk metaphysics, and I'm all at sea there."
Talbot was silent.
Brooke began to sing:
"How doth the little busy bee
Improve the shining hour.
But I prefer
The caterpil-ler
That feeds on the self-same flower.
The bee he slaves for all his life;—
Not so the other one;
For he soars to the sky,
A butterfly,
Ere half his days are done."