uld not that
be better than nothing?"

His hands on her shoulders shook. She glanced up at him under her
lids,--a strange glance into which there flashed something that died as
it came. Her eyes were dilated, but she made no motion to push his hands
from her.

"Could she win him?" Eudemius's voice was not above a whisper, yet it
was tense with restrained excitement. Drops of sweat beaded his
forehead; the cords of his neck were taut. "Varia, dost know, child,
what thou art?"

"Ay," she answered quietly. "A fool. Thou hast said it."

Eudemius gave an exclamation of bitter impatience.

"Fool--yes, and child and woman as well. Hast thou never thought what it
might be to become as other women are? To know the kiss of a man's lips
on thine--to feel his arms about thee--to listen to the tale of love
that is told to all but thee--"

"Tale!" said Varia, catching at the word. "Oh, I have heard
tales--wonderful tales, more wonderful than any that ever were told
before! And I have known the kiss of a man's lips on mine; and I have
felt a man's arms about me!"

Eudemius gripped her slender shoulders, staring at her, and his face
worked. Then he flung her away from him.

"Thou poor fool!" he said in contemptuous pity. He clenched his hands
and strode up and down before the couch. "Oh, if I could but waken
thee--if I could but waken thee! I'd use thee, poor tool as thou
art--I'd make thee, a worthless pawn, queen to play my game for me! Thou
art mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, to do with as I will.
Sometimes my hands itch to shake into thee the sense thou lackest--or
else to shake the useless life out of thee."

He stopped before her, breathless with thwarted passion that time after
time dashed itself like surge against the inexorable rock of
Circumstance, to fall back baffled and beaten.

"Tell me!" he said, in a voice grown suddenly calm. "Child o' mine, dost
think that thou couldst win a man?"

It was a strange question from father to child, but then he did not see
it so. And Varia, looking at him, made a strange answer.

"I have won a man!" she said, and her voice was slow and haunting. "Body
and soul I have won him; he is mine for all time to come, to do with as
I will. I am a fool, but I have done this thing, and I think--" She
stopped, and her voice changed and grew scornful--"I think it is but a
little thing to do!"

Eudemius stared at her.

"Thou hast--" he whispered, and moistened his lips with