r feet. Now his gold eyes were fixed on Loring. A rim
of milky jade showed beneath them. There was suspicion and cold anger in
their gaze.

Sophy was hemmed in by those quivering arms that did not touch her, but
whose vibration she felt through the wood of the old chair. Loring's
face was rapt and wild. He was "out of himself"--terribly close to her
in his fanatic mystery of adoration.

"Why should you mind?" his words came racing breathlessly. "What I offer
you isn't common or unclean.... I think of you as Catholics think of
Mary...."

"My dear...." whispered Sophy. He hypnotised her with the tremendous
intensity of his emotion. It poured on her from his dark, bold eyes that
had a wild timidity even in their boldness.

The same inanity of mind that had assailed her that day in the October
woods, under his first outburst, again made her feel at a loss. She
could _not_ think of the right words to say. She drew back as far as she
could from him in the deep chair. Her bosom rose and fell uncertainly.
He moved her ... he confused her. She did not quite know what it was
that he made her feel. The scent of horse and leather and winter fields
was still fresh upon him. This scent confused her more. It was the sharp
scent of vigorous manhood in her quiet room, with its warm fragrance of
green wood and rose-geranium. It made her nervously aware of herself and
of him.

"Dear Morris ... please get up...." she urged, making a great effort to
be natural. "I can't think with you kneeling there like that.... You
confuse me...."

"I don't want you to think.... I want you to _feel_.... I _want_ to
confuse you.... I want you to feel something of what I'm feeling....
Yes, something of it ... something at least...."

"Don't...!" she murmured.

Her brow contracted, as if with pain. Yet she tried to smile. She was
quite pale. So was Loring. But he did not move. His thirsty eyes drank
and drank of her face.

"Oh, you wonder...!" he whispered hurryingly. "You wonder of the
world.... Rose of the World!..."

Suddenly he dropped his head, and began kissing the velvet of her gown.
She felt these kisses through the velvet--swift, wild, hurried--like the
alight and flight of birds. His passion seemed winged like birds. And
these wings beat about her, softly reckless and confusing. All Venus's
doves seemed loosed in the firelit room. The air was thick with the
throb of their pinions. Outside thrummed the deep, harsh chords of the
winter