ce began to burn high, and a dawning alarm to translate
itself into anger. He would not be played with, by any woman who ever
lived! "Marise," he said roughly, "what under the sun is it?" In his
tone was all his contemptuous dismissal of it, whatever it might be . . .
outworn moral qualms, fear of the world's opinion, inertia, cowardice,
hair-splitting scruples, or some morbid physical revulsion . . . there was
not one of them which he knew he could not instantly pounce on and shake
to rags.

Marise stood very still, her eyes bent downward. "Aren't you going to
answer me?" he said, furious.

She nodded. "Yes, I'm going to answer you," she said, without raising
her eyes. He understood that he must wait, and stood opposite to her,
close to her, looking at her, all the strength of his passion in that
avid gaze.

She was stamped on his mind in every detail as she looked at that
instant, infinitely desirable, infinitely alluring, in her thin white
dress, her full supple woman's body erect and firm with a strong life of
its own, her long sensitive hands clasped before her . . . how many times
in his dreams had he held them in his . . . her shining dark hair bound
smoothly about her head and down low on each side of her rounded
forehead. Her thick white eyelids, down-dropped, were lowered over her
eyes, and her mouth with its full lips and deep corners . . . at the sight
of her mouth on which he had laid that burning kiss, Vincent felt a
barrier within him give way . . . here he was at last with the woman he
loved, the woman who was going to give herself to him . . . Good God! all
these words . . . what did they mean? Nothing. He swept her into his arms
and drew her face to his, his eyes closed, lost in the wonder and
ecstasy of having reached his goal at last.

* * * * *

She did not make the startled virginal resistance of a girl. She drew
away from him quietly . . . the hatred for that quiet was murderous in him
. . . and shook her head. Why, it was almost gently that she shook her
head.

How dared she act gently to him, as though he were a boy who had made a
mistake! How dared she not be stirred and mastered! He felt his head
burning hot with anger, and knew that his face must be suffused with
red.

And hers was not, it was quiet. He could have stamped with rage, and
shaken her. He wanted to hurt her at once, deeply, to pierce her and
sting her back to life. "Do you mean," he said br