her splendid face. Here was one who would go to the whole lengths of heaven or hell, whichever she had to go. And he mistrusted her, he was afraid of a woman capable of such abandon, such dangerous thoroughness of destructivity. Yet he chuckled within himself also.

She came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, looking down at him with strange golden-lighted eyes, very tender, but with a curious devilish look lurking underneath.

“Say you love me, say ‘my love’ to me,” she pleaded.

He looked back into her eyes, and saw. His face flickered with sardonic comprehension.

“I love you right enough,” he said, grimly. “But I want it to be something else.”

“But why? But why?” she insisted, bending her wonderful luminous face to him. “Why isn’t it enough?”

“Because we can go one better,” he said, putting his