Slowly along one of these, a bright-gowned merchant rode a white pony, his bells tinkling in the stillness of sea and land.

Everywhere, like other bells more tiny and shrill, sounded the trilling of frogs.
As the two on the pagoda stood listening,-- "It was before Rome," she declared thoughtfully.

"Before Egypt, and has never changed.

You and I are just--" She broke off, humming:-- "Only here and now?
Behold They were the same in years of old!" Her mood colored the scene: the aged continuity of life oppressed him.
Yet he chose rather to watch the straggling battlements, far off, than to meet her eyes or see her hair gleaming in the sun.

Through many troubled days he had forgotten her, despised her, bound his heart in triple brass against a future in her hateful neighborhood; and now, beside her at this time-worn rail, he was in danger of being happy.