“Listen, Alan.  I cannot marry you.  I couldn’t, even if I loved you, and I don’t think I do love you, though you fascinate me and, when we are dancing, I forget all the other things in you that I hate.  I have been very foolish and maybe unkind to let it go on so far.  I didn’t quite know what I was doing.  Girls don’t know.  That is why they play with men as they do.  They don’t mean to be cruel.  They just don’t know.”

“But you know now, my Tony?” His dark, stormy face was very close to hers.  Tony felt her heart leap but she did not flinch nor pull away this time.

“Yes, Alan, I know, in a way, at least.  We mustn’t go on like this.  It is bad for us both.  I’ll tell Carlotta I am going home to-morrow.”

“You want—­to go away from me?” The haunting music of his voice, more moving in its hurt than in its mastery of mood, stirred Tony Holiday profoundly, but she steadied herself by a strong effort of will.  She must not let him sweep her away from her moorings.  She must not.  She must remember Holiday Hill very hard.

“I have to, Alan,” she said.  “I am very sorry if I have hurt you, am hurting you.  But I can’t marry you.  That is final.  The sooner we end things the better.”

“By God!  It isn’t final.  It never will be so long as you and I are both alive.  You will come to me of your own accord.  You will love me.  You do love me now.  But you are letting the world come in between where it has no right to come.  I tell you you are mine—­mine!”

“No, no!” denied Tony.

“And I say yes, my love.  You are my love.  I have set my seal upon you.  You can go away, back to your Hill, but you will not be happy without me.  You will never forget me for a waking moment.  You cannot.  You are a part of me, forever.”

There was something solemn, inexorable in Alan’s tones.  A strange fear clutched at Tony’s heart.  Was he right?  Could she never forget him?  Would he always be a part of her—­forever?  No, that was nonsense!  How could it be true?  How could he have set his seal upon her when he had never even kissed her?  She would not let him hypnotize her into believing his prophecy.

She stooped mechanically to pick up her roses and remembered the story of Persephone gathering lilies in the vale of Enna and suddenly borne off by the coal black horses of Dis to the dark kingdom of the lower world.  Was she Persephone?  Had she eaten of the pomegranate seeds while she danced night after night in Alan Massey’s arms?  No, she would not believe it.  She was free.  She would exile Alan Massey from her heart and life.  She must.

This resolve was in her eyes as she lifted them to Alan’s.  The fire had died out of his now, and his face was gray and drawn in the sunshine.  His mood had changed as his moods so often did swiftly.

“Forgive me, Tony,” he said humbly.  “I have troubled you, frightened you.  I am sorry.  You needn’t go away.  I will go.  I don’t want to spoil one moment of happiness for you.  I never shall, except when the devil is in me.  Please try to remember that.  Say always, ’Alan loves me.  No matter what he does or says, he loves me.  His love is real, if nothing else about him is.’  You do believe that, don’t you, dearest?” he pleaded.