“There is such a thing as liberty.”

“I don’t know about that.  And a good many crimes have been committed in its name.”  Even in his unhappiness he was controversial.  “We are never really free, so long as we love people, and they love us.  Well—­” He picked up his old felt hat and absently turned down the brim; it was raining.  “I’ll have to get back.  I’ve overstayed my lunch hour as it is.”

“You haven’t had any luncheon?”

“I wasn’t hungry,” he had said, and had gone away, his coat collar turned up against the shower.  Lily had had a presentiment that he was taking himself out of her life, that he had given her up as a bad job.  She felt depressed and lonely, and not quite so sure of herself as she had been; rather, although she did not put it that way, as though something fine had passed her way, like Pippa singing, and had then gone on.

She settled down as well as she could to her new life, making no plans, however, and always with the stricken feeling that she had gained her own point at the cost of much suffering.  She telephoned to her mother daily, broken little conversations with long pauses while Grace steadied her voice.  Once her mother hung up the receiver hastily, and Lily guessed that her grandfather had come in.  She felt very bitter toward him.

But she found the small oneage interesting, in a quiet way; to make her own bed and mend her stockings—­Grace had sent her a trunkful of clothing; and on the elderly maid’s afternoon out, to help Elinor with the supper.  She seldom went out, but Louis Akers came daily, and on the sixth day of her stay she promised to marry him.

She had not meant to do it, but it was difficult to refuse him.  She had let him think she would do it ultimately, for one thing.  And, however clearly she might analyze him in his absences, his strange attraction reasserted itself when he was near.  But her acceptance of him was almost stoical.

“But not soon, Louis,” she said, holding him off.  “And—­I ought to tell you—­I don’t think we will be happy together.”

“Why not?”

“Because—­” she found it hard to put into words—­“because love with you is a sort of selfish thing, I think.”

“I’ll lie down now and let you tramp on me,” he said exultantly, and held out his arms.  But even as she moved toward him she voiced her inner perplexity.

“I never seem to be able to see myself married to you.”

“Then the sooner the better, so you can.”

“You won’t like being married, you know.”

“That’s all you know about it, Lily.  I’m mad about you.  I’m mad for you.”

There was a new air of maturity about Lily those days, and sometimes a sort of aloofness that both maddened him and increased his desire to possess her.  She went into his arms, but when he held her closest she sometimes seemed farthest away.

“I want you now.”