d an old name and a fighting jaw, whose
words stirred the pulses like a quickstep on the piccolo.

And his eyes made her understand what was meant by actinic rays. They
were looking at her, piercing through her garments until she felt
herself subtly divested of all concealments.

And then she trembled as if his eyes physically touched her! She
thrilled, she blushed, she frowned--for she felt herself desired. And
her thoughts became the thoughts of a woman who is wooed by life, by
love, by a man's red blood and her own. Her New York inhibitions turned
to ashes. Life-long mental habits withered and shriveled and vanished in
microscopic flakes until into her self-hypnotized consciousness there
came the eternal query of the female who has stopped running, "What can
I give to this man?"

And Hendrik, seeing her face, held his shaking hands before her,
impatiently beckoning to her to come. Some unseen spirit took her slim
hands and, without consulting her, placed them in his.

And then he kissed her.

The heavens flamed. She pushed him from her and sank back trembling upon
the divan on which Marie Antoinette was not sitting on the day when de
Rohan did not bring the diamond necklace that did not cause the French
Revolution, though Mr. Goodchild had paid eighteen thousand five hundred
dollars for the historic suite, in the Sunday supplement.

XXVIII

It is difficult for a man to know what to do after the first kiss. A
second kiss is not so wise as appears at first blush. It impairs mental
efficiency by rendering irresistible the desire for a third. A banal
remark is equally fatal. To tell her, "Now you are mine in God's sight,"
is worse than sacrilegious; it is conducive to acute suffragism and some
polemical oratory. To say, "Now I am yours for ever," may be of
demonstrable accuracy, but also conduces to speech.

Hendrik Rutgers was no ordinary man. He knew that one kiss does not make
one marriage nor even one divorce. But he knew that he was at least at
the church door and he had a wonderful ring in his waistcoat pocket. He
therefore became H. R. once more--cool, calm, master of his fate.

It behooved him to do something. He did. He fell on his knees and
reverently bowed his head. And then she heard him say, "Grant that I may
become worthy of her!"

Then his lips moved in silence. She saw them move. Her soul trembled.
Was she so much to this man?

Great is the power of prayer even in the homes of the ric