The
wardrobe, too, had been bought at the same auction, and he looked
into its panels, praising them.
"But you want more light." She went over and lighted the candles on
the dressing-table, accomplishing the duties of hostess quite
unconcerned, ignoring the past. "One would think she had forgotten
it," he said to himself. "Are we to part like this? But it is for her
to decide. So quiet, so self-contained; it doesn't seem even to occur
to her." He waited, incapable of speech or action, paralysed, till
she bade him good-night. As soon as the door closed, or a moment
after, he began to realise his mistake. What he should have done was
to lay his hand upon her shoulder and lead her to the window-seat,
and sit with her there till a greyness came into the sky and a cold
air rustled in the trees. "Of course, of course," he muttered, for he
could see himself and her in the dawn together, united again and
tasting again in a kiss infinity. In her kiss he had tasted that
unity, that binding together of the mortal to the immortal, of the
finite to the infinite, which Paracelsus--He tried to recall the
words, "He who tastes a crust of bread has tasted of the universe,
even to the furthest star.
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