"Because you love me?"
"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our behalf. No, that is not the reason."
"Then—may you not stay?"
"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"
"Hold my head high ... guilty or not."
"You don't know what you are saying."
"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long, long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters.
"I may not have much time;—I want to be candid—I want to think honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become what I am—a stranger to myself."
He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"
She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do