tly and stood at the door, facing the night. From behind
came the rustle of clothes, and the sense of her followed and surrounded
and stood at his shoulder calling to him to turn. He had won, but he
began to wonder if it had not been a Pyrrhic victory.

At length: "All right, Anthony. It's your turn."

She was lying on her side, facing the wall, a little heap of clothes on
the foot of her bunk, and the lithe lines of her body something to be
guessed at--sensed beneath the heavy blanket. He slipped into his own
bunk and lay a moment watching the heavy drift of shadows across the
ceiling. He strove to think, but the waves of light and dark blotted
from his mind all except the feeling of her nearness, that indefinable
power keen as the fragrance of a garden, which had never quite become
disentangled from his spirit. She was there, so close. If he called,
she would answer; if she answered------

He turned to the wall, shut his eyes, and closed his mind with a Spartan
effort. His breathing came heavily, regularly, like one who slept or one
who is running. Over that sound he caught at length another light
rustling, and then the faint creak as she crossed the crazy floor. He
made his face calm--forced his breath to grow more soft and regular.

Then, as if a shadow in which there is warmth had crossed him, he knew
that she was leaning above him, close, closer; he could hear her breath.
In a rush of tenderness, he forgot her beauty of eyes and round, strong
throat, and supple body--he forgot, and was immersed, like an eagle
winging into a radiant sunset cloud, in a sense only of her being, quite
divorced from the flesh, the mysterious rare power which made her Sally
Fortune, and would not change no matter what body might contain it.

It was blindingly intense, and when his senses cleared he knew that she
was gone. He felt as if he had awakened from a night full of dreams more
vivid than life--dreams which left him too weak to cope with reality.

For a time he dared not move. He was feeling for himself like a man who
fumbles his way down a dark passage dangerous with obstructions. At last
it was as if his hand touched the knob of a door; he swung it open,
entered a room full of dazzling light--himself. He shrank back from it;
closed his eyes against what he might see.

All he knew, then, was an overpowering will to see her. He turned, inch
by inch, little degree by degree, knowing that if, when he turned, he
looked into her