h a wild fire. It snapped in her eyes when Eugene undid her wonderful
hair and ran his hands through its heavy strands. "The Rhine Maiden," he
would say. "Little Lorelei! You are like the mermaid waiting to catch
the young lover in the strands of her hair. You are Marguerite and I
Faust. You are a Dutch Gretchen. I love this wonderful hair when it is
braided. Oh, sweet, you perfect creature! I will put you in a painting
yet. I will make you famous."

Angela thrilled to this. She burned in a flame which was of his fanning.
She put her lips to his in long hot kisses, sat on his knee and twined
her hair about his neck; rubbed his face with it as one might bathe a
face in strands of silk. Finding such a response he went wild, kissed
her madly, would have been still more masterful had she not, at the
slightest indication of his audacity, leaped from his embrace, not
opposition but self protection in her eyes. She pretended to think
better of his love, and Eugene, checked by her ideal of him, tried to
restrain himself. He did manage to desist because he was sure that he
could not do what he wanted to. Daring such as that would end her love.
So they wrestled in affection.

It was the fall following his betrothal to Angela that he actually took
his departure. He had drifted through the summer, pondering. He had
stayed away from Ruby more and more, and finally left without saying
good-bye to her, though he thought up to the last that he intended to go
out and see her.

As for Angela, when it came to parting from her, he was in a depressed
and downcast mood. He thought now that he did not really want to go to
New York, but was being drawn by fate. There was no money for him in the
West; they could not live on what he could earn there. Hence he must go
and in doing so must lose her. It looked very tragic.

Out at her aunt's house, where she came for the Saturday and Sunday
preceding his departure, he walked the floor with her gloomily, counted
the lapse of the hours after which he would be with her no more,
pictured the day when he would return successful to fetch her. Angela
had a faint foreboding fear of the events which might intervene. She had
read stories of artists who had gone to the city and had never come
back. Eugene seemed such a wonderful person, she might not hold him; and
yet he had given her his word and he was madly in love with her--no
doubt of that. That fixed, passionate, yearning look in his eyes--what
did