ously soft.
She did not repulse him, nor did she yield herself at once to his
embrace. She looked up at him with wet eyes and a curious smile.

"My friend," she said, "do you wish to take me by storm. What is all
this you are saying--and why do you look so fierce?"

"Because I am desperate, dear," he answered. "Because I am alone with
you, the woman I love, and because a single word from you can open the
gates of Heaven for me. Don't think I am too rough. I will not hold
you for a moment if you bid me let you go. See, you are free. Now you
shall answer me or I will read your silence as I choose--and--"

His arms were around her waist. Her face was turned away, but he saw
the glitter of a tear in her eyes, and he was very bold. He kissed it
away.

"Emily," he cried, "you care for me--a little. You are not heartless.
Dear, I will wait for you as long as you like."

She unclasped his hands and drew a little away from him. But he did not
lose heart, for though her smile was a wistful one, her eyes were soft
with unshed tears, and her face was the face of a woman.

"Douglas," she said, "will you listen to me for a moment? You spoke of
those other men, you charged me with heartlessness. Perhaps you were
right. What then?"

The brutal selfishness of love and of youth swept from his memory
Strong's broken life and Drexley's despair.

"Nothing," he cried, "so long as you will care for me. I am not your
judge. I want you--you, Emily, and your love. To-night I care for
nothing else."

She laid her soft fingers upon his eager face, half caressingly, half in
repulse.

"I never wished them harm," she said. "I was interested in their work,
and to me they were merely units. So they called me heartless. I was
only selfish. I let them come to me because I like clever people about
me, and society requires just such an antidote. When they made love to
me I sent them away or bade them remain as friends. But that does not
necessarily mean that I am without a heart."

"I never want to think of them again," he murmured. "All that I want in
this world is that you tell me that you care for me."

She looked into his face, eager, passionate, almost beautiful in its
intensity, and smiled. Only the smile covered a sigh.

"If I tell you that, Douglas," she said, "will it be kindness, I wonder?
I wonder!"

"Say it, and I will forget everything else in the world," he begged.

"Then I think that I do--care for you, Douglas, if--"

H