“I want to get there before the end comes.  At the present rate of progress there is not more than a year’s purchase of bric-a-brac left in the empire.  I must hurry over and get my share.  What can I do for you?” he continued, seeing that she sat silent, twisting her white fingers together.  “Shall I not bring you the loot of a temple or two?  They say the priests have become very corruptible since our missionaries got there—­the false religion tumbling all to pieces before the true.”

Still she made no answer, and the fixed smile on her face looked as if she hardly heard what he was saying.  But he went on in the same light, bantering tone.

“Shall I bring you back a Jinrickishaw?”

“What in the world is that—­but, no matter what it is—­tell me, are you really going so soon?”

If Farnham had not been the most modest of men, the tone in which this question was asked would have taught him that he need not exile himself.  But he answered seriously: 

“Yes, I am really going.”

“But why?” The question came from unwilling lips, but it would have its way.  The challenge was more than Farnham could endure.  He spoke out with quick and passionate earnestness: 

“Must I tell you then?  Do you not know?  I am going because you send me.”

“Oh, no,” she murmured, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes.

“I am going because I love you, and I cannot bear to see you day by day, and know that you are not for me.  You are too young and too good to understand what I feel.  If I were a saint like you, perhaps I might rejoice in your beauty and your grace without any selfish wish—­but I cannot.  If you are not to be mine, I cannot enjoy your presence.  Every charm you have is an added injury, if I am to be indifferent to you.”

Her hands flew up and covered her eyes.  She was so happy that she feared he would see it and claim her too soon and too swiftly.

He mistook the gesture, and went on in his error.

“There!  I have made you angry, or wounded you again.  It would be so continually, if I should stay.  I should be giving you offence every hour in the day.  I cannot help loving you, any more than I can help breathing.  This is nothing to you or worse than nothing, but it is all my life to me.  I do not know how it will end.  You have filled every thought of my mind, every vein of my body.  I am more you than myself.  How can I separate myself from you?”

As he poured out these words, and much more, hot as a flood of molten metal, Alice slowly recovered her composure.  She was absolutely and tranquilly happy—­so perfectly at rest that she hardly cared for the pain her lover was confessing.  She felt she could compensate him for everything, and every word he said filled her with a delight which she could not bear to lose by replying.  She sat listening to him with half-shut eyes, determined not to answer until he had made an end of speaking.  But she said to herself, with a tenderness which made her heart beat more than her lover’s words, “How surprised he will be when I tell him he shall not go.”