hough it were his native tongue? He seemed unreal to
her. She, herself, seemed unreal. He rushed on:

"Yes, yes!... You've called me Endymion in mockery. But I _am_
Endymion.... Did you know that when you mocked me?... Did you know that
I am really the man that drew down the Lady Moon?..."

He laughed again. He was so amazingly beautiful as he crouched there,
laughing with love in the firelight, that Sophy quivered with it. She
felt dazed. She felt some one other than herself. She began to feel that
there was a stranger within her--a woman she had never known. Some one
wild and shy and spun of moonbeams--a sort of fairy-Sophy that this
ecstatic youth was moulding out of dream-stuff--that was coming into
ensorceled life under his touch as Galatea softened from marble into
flesh under the caresses of Pygmalion....

She felt as if she must break away from him--escape from the sound of
his feverish, flooding words--and that bold-timidity of his eyes that so
fascinated her. She tried to rise, but he hemmed her in, with his arms
upon her chair, encircling yet not touching her.

He laughed very low now--it was like a sort of sobbing.

"Oh, Selene.... Selene.... Selene...." he murmured. "Let yourself be
loved ... with worship ... always with worship. I will never forget that
you are a goddess, too.... But you shall never be lonely again ... if
you will only bend to me.... There'll never be tears in your beautiful
eyes again.... And you _were_ lonely--you know you were.... It's lonely
work, Selene, shining alone in the roof of heaven...."

Sophy put up her hands to her temples, pressing the hair back from her
face. Her dilated eyes looked dazed.

"I ... I think you're not quite yourself to-night...." she stammered.
There was certainly some spell upon her. She strove against it--but
weakly, like one striving to wake from an overpowering dream.

He gave that low laugh that so confused her.

"I'm _not_ myself...." he said. "Haven't I told you that I am
Endymion?..."

He leaned towards her. His face grew soft and timorous. She felt his
hand go stealing to her hair. One heavy lock had fallen loose. He drew
it to him, buried his face in it and shivered from head to foot. Sophy
sat gazing down at him. Her heart began beating strangely. The curve of
the brown head bending near her breast struck her suddenly with a sharp
tenderness. She touched it softly with her finger tips. At the touch of
her fingers he trembled again--then