“I should like to hasten the stream of time by some twenty years! In twenty years it will be different. In twenty years from now you would be happy; in twenty years I myself would not be so willing to die. To-day we are both judged, both lost. In short; this life . . . it does not make any difference how we live it . . . it is something temporary . . . maybe later it will be something, and maybe not . . . who knows?”
Lucy was not listening. Her meeting with the ladies at once became clear to her. The feeling of a coming storm overcame her. The whole park seemed to her to be hostile. She thought of the room at the estate and of the old lady, of her good, pale eyes, and she longed for them, as a child longs for its mother. She arose. With face turned away, she quietly gave him her hand. He pressed it, without saying a word. She went away, faster, faster, until she found herself almost at a run, where the walnut leaves smelled more strongly. Then she walked
