I wish I were worthy you."

He took her hand in his wide palms and smiled.

"Don't flatter me--if flattery it can be called. I question whether
saintliness in broadcloth is lovable; but I appreciate the compliment
the more for its being undeserved."

"Boy, you are frivolous; if you weren't so good I should not have qualms
about----"

"Do you know," he interposed abruptly, "how the Orientals prostrate
themselves before their divinity? I would do more."

He flung himself on the ground at her feet, his forehead against the
earth, and with a quick touch placed his head beneath her heel.

She uttered a sharp cry and stooped to him--to lift him. Had it been
Rosser's, she thought, the act would have loomed magnificent; as it was,
the combined self-abasement--the devotion, the allegiance of it--was
crude and colourless. For her there were no passionate illuminations to
preserve the margin of the sublime. She had argued love to be but the
shadow cast by ourselves, and at that moment her soul's lamp lighted
only conceptions that were blurred, formless, and grotesque.

But as he rose he caught her in his arms, and she did not resist them.
She lay inert, like a wounded animal after long strife, and pleaded as
though for physical or mental refuge.

"Make me love you! Make me love you!"

And so he kissed her.

It was a kiss that might have awakened a statue to tenderness. The wine
of her lips, as he pressed and bruised and crushed them, intoxicated
him. He forgot Rosser.

III.

The next day a stone Galatea faced the mirror. There was a purple stain
upon her mouth--a tiny swelling that would not disappear. It was
scarcely perceptible, but it burnt brand-like on her heart; it glared
at, and mocked her, and seemed to beckon with horrible witch-like
fingers along the grimy gutters that fringe the paved paths to despair.

Loveless surrender! What more unredeemed debasement! Yet she would have
vowed her being to lifelong slavery for Gordon Rosser's sake, and held
such sacrifice but glorification. One kiss! What was it? Was it gold or
was it mud? Mud, mud, mud, which only the magic of love's alchemy could
transmute to gold and pearl. Yet the mud had served its purpose. Was it
not sufficient to defile the temple that had been consecrated to an
unworthy idol, break down its altars, obliterate all memory of misguided
worship--child-like, unreasoning faiths?

But her revenge--her curse on the falsity had come home to roost. I