wind. Outside was cold, clear space--a frost of stars--the free,
unloving wind....

She bent forward, quite desperate to feel herself thus stirred. With her
slender, strong hands she lifted his head by force from her knee ...
tried to put him from her.... She wanted to be stern. She knew well that
her greatest weakness was in dealing with love. She had always
temporised. She could never quite get her own consent to be harsh with
love of any kind. Even now she could not be as stern as she wished to
be.

"Morris ... really ... you must not.... I can't have this...." she said
brokenly.

He did not yield to her restraining touch, but leaned against her
hands--seized them in his own, pressing down his face into them. She
felt his lips quivering on them. Her palms quickened with those
trembling lips.

Again the collie growled.

"There! You see...." she exclaimed nervously; "even Dhu is vexed with
you.... Do you want me to be really angry with you?... Yes--I shall be
really angry if you keep this up any longer.... I shall be angry ...
Morris!"

But he crouched before her, grasping the folds of her gown in both
hands. He even laughed a little, tossing back his short locks, that had
been rumpled against her knee.

"_Be_ angry, then...." he murmured. "_Be_ angry.... What do the
famishing care for anger?... Yes.... I thirst for you.... I don't hunger
for you.... There's nothing so gross as hunger in my longing.... But I
thirst.... I thirst.... Oh, Beautiful!... Be kind.... What is it to you
if I worship you?... Can the wind kindle the moon? You should have seen
the poor, mad wind trying to kindle her, as I did, when I rode here to
you this night!... He raved at her as I rave at you.... And she was just
like you--oh, so like you!... Cold, white, still, superior ... far off
there in a heaven of her own ... like you.... He couldn't reach her....
Couldn't warm her.... Like me with you...."

He broke off, a spasm marring the excited beauty of his face.

"Oh, don't I know I can't warm you...!" he cried. "Not if I bathed you
in my heart's blood--it would slip from you like a red sunset from the
moon. White Wonder ... cold Moon-Woman!... Now I know what Endymion
felt.... I know--I know...."

Sophy sat gazing at him, fascinated. She was lapped in a sort of wonder.
Here was Love at his miracles again. Could this be "Morry" Loring--keen
sportsman, crack polo player--this frantic young Rhapsodist at her knee,
talking poetry as t