By this time he was in the coveted seat beside her on the couch, and the fire burned low and red.  They had ceased to talk of games and dances.  They were talking of each other, those intimate nothings that mean a breaking down of distance and a rapidly growing familiarity.

The young man was aware of the fascination of the small figure in her crimson robings, sitting so demurely in the firelight, the gauzy scarf dropped away from her white neck and shoulders, the lovely curve of her baby cheek and tempting neck showing against the background of the shadows behind her.  He was aware of a distinct longing to take her in his arms and crush her to him, as he would pluck a red berry from a bank, and feel its stain upon his lips.  Stain!  A stain was a thing that was hard to remove.  There were blood-stains sometimes and agonies; and yet men wanted to pluck the berries and feel the stain upon their lips!

He was not under the hallucination that he was suddenly falling in love with this girl.  He did not name the passionate outcry in his soul love.  He knew she had been a charmer of many, and in yielding himself to her recognized power he was for the moment playing with a force that was new and interesting, with which he had felt altogether strong enough to contend for an evening or he would not have come.  That it should thrill along all his senses with this unreasoning rapture was most astonishing.  He had never been a fellow to “fall” for every girl he met, and now he felt himself gradually yielding to the beautiful spell about him with a kind of wonder.

The lights and coloring of the room that had smote his senses unpleasantly when he first entered had thrown him now into a kind of delicious fever.  The neglected wine sparkling dimly in the costly glasses seemed a part of it.  He felt an impulse to reach out, seize a glass, and drain it.  What if he should?  What if he flung away his ideas and principles and let the moment sway him as it would, just for once?  Why should he not try life as it presented itself?

These fancies fled through his brain like phantoms that did not dare to linger.  His was no callow mind, ignorant of the world.  He had thought and read and lived his ideas well for so young a man.  He had vigorously protested against weakness of every kind; yet here he was feeling the drawing power of things he had always despised; reveling in the wine-red color of the room, in the pit-like glow of the fire; watching the play of smiles and wistfulness on the lovely face of the girl.  He had often wondered what others saw so attractive in her beyond a pretty face.  But now he understood.  Her child-like speech and pretty little ways fascinated him.  Perhaps she was really innocent of her own charms.  Perhaps a man might lead her to give up certain of her ways that caused her to be criticized.  What a woman she would be then!  What a friend to have!

This was the last sop he threw to his conscience before he consciously began to yield to the spell that was upon him.