“Nero fiddled when Rome was burning,” he said harshly.  “Did you come to sing while my Rome goes up in smoke?”

A little, half-strangled sob escaped her.  She turned to go.  But he caught her by the arm.

“There, lady,” he said, with a swift change of tone, “I didn’t mean to slash at you.  I suppose you mean all right.  But just now, with everything gone to the devil, to look up and see you here—­I’ve really got an ugly temper, Stella, and it’s pretty near the surface these days.  I don’t want to be pitied and sympathized with.  I want to fight.  I want to hurt somebody.”

“Hurt me then,” she cried.

He shook his head sadly.

“I couldn’t do that,” he said.  “No, I can’t imagine myself ever doing that.”

“Why?” she asked, knowing why, but wishful to hear in words what his eyes shouted.

“Because I love you,” he said.  “You know well enough why.”

She lifted her one free hand to his shoulder.  Her face turned up to his.  A warm wave of blood dyed the round, white neck, shot up into her cheeks.  Her eyes were suddenly aglow, lips tremulous.

“Kiss me, then,” she whispered.  “That’s what I came for.  Kiss me, Jack.”

If she had doubted, if she had ever in the last few hours looked with misgiving upon what she felt herself impelled to do, the pressure of Jack Fyfe’s lips on hers left no room for anything but an amazing thrill of pure gladness.  She was happy in his arms, content to rest there, to feel his heart beating against hers, to be quit of all the uncertainties, all the useless regrets.  By a roundabout way she had come to her own, and it thrilled her to her finger tips.  She could not quite comprehend it, or herself.  But she was glad, weeping with gladness, straining her man to her, kissing his face, murmuring incoherent words against his breast.

“And so—­and so, after all, you do care.”  Fyfe held her off a little from him, his sinewy fingers gripping gently the soft flesh of her arms.  “And you were big enough to come back.  Oh, my dear, you don’t know what that means to me.  I’m broke, and I’d just about reached the point where I didn’t give a damn.  This fire has cleaned me out.  I’ve—­”

“I know,” Stella interrupted.  “That’s why I came back.  I wouldn’t have come otherwise, at least not for a long time—­perhaps never.  It seemed as if I ought to—­as if it were the least I could do.  Of course, it looks altogether different, now that I know I really want to.  But you see I didn’t know that for sure until I saw you standing here.  Oh, Jack, there’s such a lot I wish I could wipe out.”

“It’s wiped out,” he said happily.  “The slate’s clean.  Fair weather didn’t get us anywhere.  It took a storm.  Well, the storm’s over.”

She stirred uneasily in his arms.

“Haven’t you got the least bit of resentment, Jack, for all this trouble I’ve helped to bring about?” she faltered.