trembling--the action had not stirred her
sense of the ridiculous. He circled her knees with his arms.

"Oh, Gyp, I love you--I love you--don't send me away--let me be with
you! I am your dog--your slave. Oh, Gyp, I love you!"

His voice moved and terrified her. Men had said "I love you" several
times during those last two years, but never with that lost-soul ring of
passion, never with that look in the eyes at once fiercely hungry and so
supplicating, never with that restless, eager, timid touch of hands. She
could only murmur:

"Please get up!"

But he went on:

"Love me a little, only a little--love me! Oh, Gyp!"

The thought flashed through Gyp: 'To how many has he knelt, I wonder?'
His face had a kind of beauty in its abandonment--the beauty that comes
from yearning--and she lost her frightened feeling. He went on, with his
stammering murmur: "I am a prodigal, I know; but if you love me, I will
no longer be. I will do great things for you. Oh, Gyp, if you will some
day marry me! Not now. When I have proved. Oh, Gyp, you are so sweet--so
wonderful!"

His arms crept up till he had buried his face against her waist. Without
quite knowing what she did, Gyp touched his hair, and said again:

"No; please get up."

He got up then, and standing near, with his hands hard clenched at his
sides, whispered:

"Have mercy! Speak to me!"

She could not. All was strange and mazed and quivering in her, her
spirit straining away, drawn to him, fantastically confused. She could
only look into his face with her troubled, dark eyes. And suddenly she
was seized and crushed to him. She shrank away, pushing him back with
all her strength. He hung his head, abashed, suffering, with eyes shut,
lips trembling; and her heart felt again that quiver of compassion. She
murmured:

"I don't know. I will tell you later--later--in England."

He bowed, folding his arms, as if to make her feel safe from him. And
when, regardless of the rain, she began to move on, he walked beside
her, a yard or so away, humbly, as though he had never poured out those
words or hurt her lips with the violence of his kiss.

Back in her room, taking off her wet dress, Gyp tried to remember what
he had said and what she had answered. She had not promised anything.
But she had given him her address, both in London and the country.
Unless she resolutely thought of other things, she still felt the
restless touch of his hands, the grip of his arms, and saw h