truth. You've just drawn
the veil aside, Wally, for me, and let me look at the true picture. All
that I've known and thought of you, so far, has been sham and illusion.
Now, I _know_ you!"

"You--you don't, Catherine!" he exclaimed, half in anger, half
contrition, terrified at last by the imminent break between them, by the
thought of losing this rich flower from the garden of womanhood, this
splendid financial and social prize. "I--I've done wrong, Kate. I admit
it. But, truly--"

"No more," said she, and in her voice sounded a command he knew, at
last, was quite inexorable. "I'm not like other women of our set,
perhaps. I can't be bought and sold, Wally, with money and position. I
can't marry a man, and have to live with him, if he shows himself
petty, or small, or narrow in any way. I must be free, free as air, as
long as I live. Even in marriage, I must be free. Freedom can only come
with the union of two souls that understand and help and inspire each
other. Anything else is slavery--and worse!"

She shuddered, and for a moment turned half away from him, as, now
contrite enough for the minute, he stood there looking at her with dazed
eyes. For a second the idea came to him that he must take her in his
arms, there in the edge of the woods, burn kisses on her ripe mouth, win
her back to him by force, as he had won all life's battles. He would
not, could not, let this prize escape him now. A wave of desire surged
through his being. He took a step toward her, his trembling arms open to
seize her lithe, seductive body. But she, retreating, held him away with
repellant palms.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "Not now--never that, any more! I must be free,
Wally--free as air!"

She raised her face toward the vast reaches of the sky, breathed deep
and for a moment closed her eyes, as though bathing her very soul in the
sweet freedom of the out-of-doors.

"Free as air!" she whispered. "Let me go!"

He started violently. Her simile had struck him like a lash.

"Free--as what?" he exclaimed hoarsely. "As _air_? But--but there's no
such freedom, I tell you! Air isn't free any more--or won't be, soon! It
will be everything, anything but free, before another year is gone! Free
as air? You--you don't understand! Your father and I--we shall soon own
the air. Free as air? Yes, if you like! For that--that means you, too,
must belong to me!"

Again he sought to take her, to hold her and overmaster her. But she,
now wide-eyed wit