fancy,
her subsequent repulse had established her influence. The stubborn
virtue, which was a part of the inherited fibre of her race, had
achieved a result not unworthy of the most finished coquette. Against
his desire for possession there battled the instinctive chastity that
was woven into the structure of Sarah Revercomb's granddaughter. Hardly
less violent than the natural impulse against which it warred, it gave
Blossom an advantage, which the obvious weakness of her heart had
helped to increase. It was as though she yearned toward him while she
resisted--as though she feared him most in the moment that she repulsed
him.

"Good God! how beautiful you are and how cold!" he exclaimed.

"I am not cold. How can you say so when you know it isn't true?"

"I've been waiting here an hour, half dead with impatience, and you
won't so much as let me touch you for a reward."

"I can't--you oughtn't to ask me, Mr. Jonathan."

"Could a single kiss hurt you? I kissed you once."

"It's--it's because you kissed me once that you mustn't kiss me again."

"You mean you didn't like it?"

"What makes you so unkind? You know it isn't that."

"Then why do you refuse?" He was in an irritable humour, and this
irritation showed in his face, in his movements, in the short, abrupt
sound of his words.

"I can't let you do it because--because I didn't know what it was like
until that first time," she protested, while two large tears rolled from
her eyes.

Softened by her confusion, his genial smile shone on her for an instant
before the gloom returned to his features. The last few weeks had preyed
on his nerves until he told himself that he could no longer control the
working of his emotions. The solitude, the emptiness of his days, the
restraint put upon him by his invalid mother--all these engendered a
condition of mind in which any transient fancy might develop into a
winged fury of impulse. There were times when his desire for Blossom's
beauty appeared to fill the desolate space, and he hungered and thirsted
for her actual presence at his side. In the excitement of a great
city, he would probably have forgotten her in a month after their first
meeting. Here, in this monotonous country, there was nothing for him
but to brood over each trivial detail until her figure stood out in his
imagination edged by the artificial light he had created around it.
Her beauty, which would have been noticeable even in a crowd, became
goddess-l