He winced as he saw them.

Then he laughed mirthlessly.

She put her fingers between her lips.

His slim, black, tortured body lay quite still in the chair.
She suddenly took her finger from her mouth and looked at him.
"And you have broken off with Clara ?" "Yes." His body lay like an abandoned thing, strewn in the chair.
"You know," she said, "I think we ought to be married." He opened his eyes for the first time since many months, and attended to her with respect.
"Why ?" he said.
"See," she said, "how you waste yourself! You might be ill, you might die, and I never know--be no more then than if I had never known you." "And if we married ?" he asked.
"At any rate, I could prevent you wasting yourself and being a prey to other women--like--like Clara." "A prey ?" he repeated, smiling.
She bowed her head in silence.

He lay feeling his despair come up again.
"I'm not sure," he said slowly, "that marriage would be much good." "I only think of you," she replied.
"I know you do.