to the coals; then a swift tenderness filled her eyes; her
sensitive lips quivered; and she came swiftly to him and took his head
into her arms.

"Dear," she whispered, "I only want to do the best for you. Let me try
in my own way. It's all for you--everything I do or think or wish or
hope is for you. Even I myself was made merely for you."

Sideways on the arm of his chair, she stooped down, laying her cheek
against his, drawing his face closer.

"I am so hopelessly in love with you," she murmured; "if I make
mistakes, forgive me; remember only that it is because I love you enough
to die for you very willingly."

He drew her down into his arms. She was never quick to respond to the
deeper emotions in him, but her cheeks and throat were flushed now, and,
as his embrace enclosed her, she responded with a sudden flash of blind
passion--a moment's impulsive self-surrender to his lips and arms--and
drew away from him dazed, trembling, shielding her face with one arm.

All that the swift contact was awakening in him turned on her fiercely
now; in his arms again she swayed, breathless, covering her face with
desperate hands, striving to comprehend, to steady her senses, to reason
while pulses and heart beat wildly and every vein ran fire.

"No--" she stammered--"this is--is wrong--wrong! Louis, I beg you, to
remember what I am to you.... Don't kiss me again--I ask you not to--I
pray that you won't.... We are--I am--engaged to you, dear.... Oh--it is
wrong--wrong, now!--all wrong between us!"

"Valerie," he stammered, "you care nothing for any law--nor do I--now--"

"I _do_! You don't understand me! Let me go. Louis--you don't love me
enough.... This--this is madness--wickedness!--you can't love me! You
don't--you can't!"

"I do love you, Valerie--"

"No--no--or you would let me go!--or you would not kiss me again--"

She freed herself, breathless, crimson with shame and anger, avoiding
his eyes, and slipped out of his embrace to her knees, sank down on the
rug at his feet, and laid her head against the chair, breathing fast,
both small hands pressed to her breast.

For a few minutes he let her lie so; then, stooping over her, white
lipped, trembling:

"What can you expect if we sow the wind?"

She began to cry, softly: "You don't understand--you never have
understood!"

"I understand this: that I am ready to take you in your way, now. I
cannot live without you, and I won't. I care no longer how I take you,