ric woman could be so cold and heartless and ungrateful. Then
I arose.

"I shall leave you NOW," I said haughtily, "I have had quite enough of
your ingratitude and your insults," and then I turned and strode
majestically down toward the valley. I had taken a hundred steps in
absolute silence, and then Dian spoke.

"I hate you!" she shouted, and her voice broke--in rage, I thought.

I was absolutely miserable, but I hadn't gone too far when I began to
realize that I couldn't leave her alone there without protection, to
hunt her own food amid the dangers of that savage world. She might
hate me, and revile me, and heap indignity after indignity upon me, as
she already had, until I should have hated her; but the pitiful fact
remained that I loved her, and I couldn't leave her there alone.

The more I thought about it the madder I got, so that by the time I
reached the valley I was furious, and the result of it was that I
turned right around and went up that cliff again as fast as I had come
down. I saw that Dian had left the ledge and gone within the cave, but
I bolted right in after her. She was lying upon her face on the pile
of grasses I had gathered for her bed. When she heard me enter she
sprang to her feet like a tigress.

"I hate you!" she cried.

Coming from the brilliant light of the noonday sun into the
semidarkness of the cave I could not see her features, and I was rather
glad, for I disliked to think of the hate that I should have read there.

I never said a word to her at first. I just strode across the cave and
grasped her by the wrists, and when she struggled, I put my arm around
her so as to pinion her hands to her sides. She fought like a tigress,
but I took my free hand and pushed her head back--I imagine that I had
suddenly turned brute, that I had gone back a thousand million years,
and was again a veritable cave man taking my mate by force--and then I
kissed that beautiful mouth again and again.

"Dian," I cried, shaking her roughly, "I love you. Can't you
understand that I love you? That I love you better than all else in
this world or my own? That I am going to have you? That love like
mine cannot be denied?"

I noticed that she lay very still in my arms now, and as my eyes became
accustomed to the light I saw that she was smiling--a very contented,
happy smile. I was thunderstruck. Then I realized that, very gently,
she was trying to disengage her arms, and I loosened my grip