No, love must wait.  That obscure unendurable nightmare tragedy of hers must be brought out into the light first and shorn of its horrors.

So he managed for the moment a lighter note.  He would not let her help in the preparation of the meager little meal which was all that his immediate resources ran to.  He hadn’t quite realized how exiguous it was going to be when he spoke of it as supper.  It was nothing but a slice of Swiss cheese, a fresh carton of biscuits and a flagon of so-called Chianti illicitly procured from the Italian grocery downstairs.

He cleared his work table and anchored her in the easy chair at the same time by putting into her lap the bulky manuscript of The Dumb Princess, and it was this they talked about while he laid the cloth—­a clean towel—­and set out his scanty array of dishes.  He feared when they drew up to the table that she was not going to be able to eat at all, and he was convinced that she was even more in need of food than he.  But the wine, thin and acidulous as it was, helped, and he saw to it that for a while she had no chance to talk.  He told her the story of The Dumb Princess in detail and dwelt a little upon the half formulated symbolism of it.

When at last he paused, she said, “I think I know why the princess was dumb.  Because when she tried to speak no one wanted to hear what she had to say.  They insisted on keeping her an image merely, so that they could go on attributing to her just the thoughts they wished her to think and just the desires they wanted her to feel.  That’s the spell that has made many a woman dumb upon all the essentials.”

He gripped his hands together between his knees, leaned a little forward, drew a steadying breath and said, “There’s something I wish you’d do for me just while we’re sitting quietly like this.  It has been so momentary, this life of ours together,—­the times I mean when we’ve been bodily together.  The whole of it could be reckoned quite easily in minutes.  There has been more packed into them, of course, than into many a lover’s months and years, but one effect it has had on me has been to make you, when you aren’t here physically with me, like this, where by merely reaching out I can touch you, a little—­visionary to me.  I confuse you with the Dumb Princess over there whom you made me create.  I get misgivings that you’re just a sort of wraith.  Well, if you’re going away and we aren’t to be within—­touching distance of each other again for a long while—­perhaps months, I want more of you, that my memory can hold on by.  The real every-day person that you are instead, as you say, of the image I’ve had to make of you.  So I wish you’d tell me as nearly as you can remember everything that you’ve done—­everything that has happened to you—­to-day.”

That last word was like the touch of a spur.  She shuddered as she cried, “Not to-day!”