"Yes," he said, "I wrote that. It was a long time ago, one night when there was such a rustling in the poplars outside my window, that was when I wrote it. No, are you really going to keep it? Thanks I You have kept it. Oh!" he broke out in sudden rapture, and his voice was quite low, "to think that you are sitting so close to me now. I feel your arm against mine, I feel a warmth from you. Many a time when I have been alone and thought of you I've shivered with emotion; but now I am warm. When I was home last you were lovely, but you are lovelier now. It is your eyes and your eye-brows, your smile—oh, I don't know, it's everything, everything about you."
She smiled and looked at him with half-closed eyes, there was a dark-blue gleam under the long lashes. A warm tinge was over her. She seemed to be a prey to the most intense joy, and with an unconscious movement she felt for his hand.
"Thanks!" she said.
"No, Victoria, don't thank me," he answered. All his soul welled out to her and he wanted to say more, say more; nothing came but confused and broken outbursts, he was as though intoxicated. "Ah but, Victoria, if you care for me a little ... I don't know, but say you do even if it is not so. Do, please! Oh, I promise you I would do things, great things, unheard-of things almost. You have no idea what I could do; I ponder over it sometimes and feel that I am simply full of things to be done. Often and often it pours out of me, at night I swing up and down my room because I am so full of visions. There's a man in the room next to me, he can't sleep, he knocks on the wall. When it begins to dawn he comes into my room and he's furious. That doesn't matter, I don't worry about him, for then I have thought so long about you that you seem to be with me. I go to the window and sing, it begins to get light, the poplars are rustling outside. Good-night! I say to the day. That is for you. Now she's asleep, I think, good-night, God bless her! Then I go to bed. So it is night after night. But I have never thought you were so lovely as you are. Now I shall remember you like this when you have gone; as you are now. I shall remember you so clearly...."
"Are you not coming home?"
"No. I'm not ready. Yes, I'll come. I shall leave now. I'm not ready, but I'll do anything in the world. Do you sometimes stroll in the garden at home now? Do you ever go out in the evening? I might see you, I might be able to greet you perhaps, nothing more. But if you care for me a little, if you can bear me, if you don't hate me, then say ... let me have that comfort.... Do you know, there is a palm that flowers only once in its lifetime, though it lives seventy years—the talipot palm. But it only flowers once. Now is my flowering time. Yes, I'll get some money and go home. I'll sell what I've written; I'm writing a big book, you know, and I'll sell it now, tomorrow morning, all I have finished. I shall get a lot for it. Do you want me to come home?"
"Yes."
"Thanks, thanks! Forgive me if I hope too much, believe too much; it is so lovely to believe beyond all bounds. This is the happiest day I have known...."
He took his hat off and laid it beside him.
Victoria looked about her, a lady was coming down the street and farther off a woman with a basket. Victoria grew uneasy, she took out her watch.