the other, and by the pair held her
off from him, looking into her eyes.

"Tell me what it meant," he said, "--your face."

"I've told you," she replied, with serious eyes.

"I saw it. It must have meant a great deal more than your words, or a
great deal less than it looked. If you were taking a cheap pleasure in
being charitable, your face is a liar, Amaryllis. If you find great
happiness in being loved, _you_ are."

She ignored the accusation, merely answering:

"I might."

But she was still so serious that Dick could not speak.

"It wasn't exactly that, though," she explained. "I want to be as
truthful as my face--if you could read it right."

"Tell me, then."

"It was my half, I think, that made me so awfully contented."

"Your half? That means--if you mean anything at all--you mean, your half
was loving me?"

She nodded, and spoke before he could answer the nod.

"Of course I might not have stayed contented long, if you hadn't been
like that too. You are, aren't you?"

His hands had slipped up her arms to her shoulders, and it sent a pang
of wild joy through her content to feel them trembling while they held
her.

"Contented? No, by God, I'm not! _Contented's_ as much as saying I could
have enough of you. But I've loved you ever since I heard you calling
Zola in that wonderful voice of yours. Before I even saw your face
close, your 'Gorgon! Gorgon!' gave me a pain I was afraid of, because I
wanted to be hurt again. It made me angry. You've been waking me up at
four in the morning and never letting me sleep again. You've filled my
head with pictures--a whole cinema of pictures; and my ears with sounds!
Your dress on the stairs; your voice calling 'Dad! dad!' from the
garden, and humming little tunes I'd never heard till you sang 'em,
coming in with your arms full of leaves and flowers. Seems like months
you've filled me, and it's only four days. No, I'm not contented,
Amaryllis, but I'm damned happy."

Then his arms crossed each other round her body; and it seemed to
Amaryllis that she sank away into space filled with an ecstasy; and
that, after a while, which was not time, she was fetched back into time
and to earth by hands so strong that they had brought the ecstasy with
them also.

There were kisses, not all his.

Then, to focus her joy, she thrust it away from her; and, seeing Dick
Bellamy's countenance, she remembered how he had spoken of what he had
found, when he awoke, in hers.

Hi