The world seemed very far away from them here on the shores of the
Pacific, on that first afternoon of the New Year. They were
supremely happy, and they sufficed to themselves. Condy had
forgotten all about the next day, when he must say good-by to
Blix.
It did not seem possible, it was not within the bounds of
possibility, that she was to go away--that they two were to be
separated. And for that matter, to-morrow was to-morrow. It was
twenty-four hours away. The present moment was sufficient.
The persistence with which they clung to the immediate moment,
their happiness in living only in the present, had brought about a
rather curious condition of things between them.
In their love for each other there was no thought of marriage;
they were too much occupied with the joy of being together at that
particular instant to think of the future. They loved each other,
and that was enough. They did not look ahead further than the
following day, and then but furtively, and only in order that
their morrow's parting might intensify their happiness of to-day.
That New Year's Day was to be the end of everything. Blix was
going; she and Condy would never see each other again. The
thought of marriage--with its certain responsibilities, its
duties, its gravity, its vague, troublous seriousness, its
inevitable disappointments--was even a little distasteful to them.
Their romance had been hitherto without a flaw; they had been
genuinely happy in little things.
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