ing unsatisfied—you seem to me, in short, so happy—'
She stopped in her rapid talk, her rapid pace along the grassy walk under the trees, and looked up at him, pale and agitated. "You don't understand my unhappiness, do you? You can't help me?" she asked.
Her hand, clinging to his arm, her whole attitude of appeal, moved Basil, but he felt, more than emotion, a sense of constraint. Her eyes were appealing, but her mouth was imperious, eager.
"No one can help you," he said slowly. "We can't help one another—except by giving enjoyment now and then—that's my creed. I can't give you my enjoyment of life. I enjoy it because I am made to enjoy it. It floats me. It depresses you. You ask of life more than it can give. Perhaps that's the nobler attitude—I don't know. I'm sure it's the more romantic one. I'm not romantic, Isabel. Your alternatives of ecstatic happiness or the cloister both seem to me impossible. I can't understand wanting to be ecstatic, in or out of religion—but I see that you do want to be."
"But, surely, you believe, at least in moments of happiness, in a feeling of joy that might lift one out of the maddening groove of life—you believe in love, Basil?"
"Not as you do, Isabel," he said gravely. "Not
