had
prepared to spend the evening with her dreams.

She did not hear Dave's automobile arrive. Her first intimation of his
presence came with the sound of his heel upon the porch. When he
appeared it was almost like the materialization of her uppermost
thought--quite as if a figure from her fancy had stepped forth full
clad.

She rose and met him, smiling. "How did you know I wanted to see you?"
she inquired.

Dave took her hand and looked down at her, framing a commonplace reply.
But for some reason the words lay unspoken upon his tongue. Alaire's
informal greeting, her parted lips, the welcoming light in her eyes,
had sent them flying. It seemed to him that the dim half-light which
illumined this nook emanated from her face and her person, that the
fragrance which came to his nostrils was the perfume of her breath, and
at the prompting of these thoughts all his smothered longings rose as
if at a signal. As mutinous prisoners in a jail delivery overpower
their guards, so did Dave's long-repressed emotions gain the upper hand
of him now, and so swift was their uprising that he could not summon
more than a feeble, panicky resistance.

The awkwardness of the pause which followed Alaire's inquiry
strengthened the rebellious impulses within him, and quite
unconsciously his friendly grasp upon her fingers tightened. For her
part, as she saw this sudden change sweep over him, her own face
altered and she felt something within her breast leap into life. No
woman could have failed to read the meaning of his sudden agitation,
and, strange to say, it worked a similar state of feeling in Alaire.
She strove to control herself and to draw away, but instead found that
her hand had answered his, and that her eyes were flashing recognition
of his look. All in an instant she realized how deathly tired of her
own struggle she had become, and experienced a reckless impulse to cast
away all restraint and blindly meet his first advance. She had no time
to question her yearnings; she seemed to understand only that this man
offered her rest and security; that in his arms lay sanctuary.

To both it seemed that they stood there silently, hand in hand, for a
very long time, though in reality there was scarcely a moment of
hesitation on the part of either. A drunken, breathless instant of
uncertainty, then Alaire was on Dave's breast, and his strength, his
ardor, his desire, was throbbing through her. Her bare arms were about
his neck; a