She turned angry shoulders to him and stirred the stones on the table with impatient fingers until they rolled about, flashing darts of light.  Symbols of power, of material and deadening splendor; eternal accompaniments of imperial magnificence!  The sapphires sang triumph, the diamonds conquest, the rubies passionate and fulfilled love.

“They are what you really care for.”  He spoke huskily; his voice sounded thick and uncertain in his ears.  “That and—­and your wonderful dancing, and applause—­and success and money.  It’s natural that you should—­but it all makes me realize—­clearly, that I can’t even try to force myself into your life.  There’s no place for me.  Even—­even if you were kind—­you sometimes seem to—­to—­to suggest that you would be—­I’d be just a useless cog, soon to be dropped.  It’s all complete without me.  But, for God’s sake, I’m begging you, I’m begging you, Pearl, not to be kind to me for the rest of the time that we’re here together.”

“And what about me?” she flashed.  “You’ve thought everything out from your own side, and you’ve just been telling it.  Don’t you think I’ve got a side, too?  I guess so.”

He looked at her in surprise, the emotion that had changed and broken his expression fading into wonderment and puzzle.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Kiss me, and I’ll show you,” she said audaciously.  All the allurement, the softness and sweetness of the south was in her mouth and eyes.

“How can we go on like this?” His voice was a mere broken whisper.  He yearned to her, leaned toward her, and yet refrained from holding her.

“Like this,” she murmured, and threw her arms about him and laid her head on his heart, her face upturned to his.

“I told you”—­so close was she held that she scarcely knew that she was breathing—­“I told you—­that if I once held you in my arms I’d never let you go.”

“You may have told yourself; you never told me before.  But I’m content.”

“Content!  That’s no word for this,” he cried between kisses.  The mounting tide he had feared had become a mighty torrent sweeping away all his carefully built up mental barriers, and with that obliterating flood came a sense of power and freedom.  All the youth in his heart rose and claimed its share of life and love and happiness.

“Let me go,” she said at last, and drew away from him, flushed as a dawn and rapturous as a sunrise.

“No, never again,” and stretched out his arms, but she slipped behind the table, putting it between them.  “Sit down,” she commanded, “and build up the fire.  I want to talk, talk a long time, all night maybe.”

“I hope so,” he said ardently, and, obeying her, stooped to place fresh logs on the embers.  “But what is there to talk about?  We’ve said and will continue to say all there is in the world worth saying.  I love you.  Do you love me?”

“Maybe you won’t want to say that after you’ve heard me.”  She had leaned forward, her arms on her knees, her eyes on the flames which leaped from dry twig to dry twig of the burning logs and on the shower of sparks which every minute or so swept up the chimney.