“It’s not,” she cried passionately, “without love.  Without your love.  I’ve got it and you can’t take it away from me.”

He brushed the wing of hair back from his pallid face.  “My love!” His voice seemed to drip the bitterness of gall.  “Where in heaven’s name is there any place for it?”

“There isn’t much room for anything else,” she returned, “and that’s the truth.  I’ve told you that all those things that you say make my life complete, don’t mean that,” she snapped her long fingers, “not that to me any more.  I’ve told you that I’d give them all up for you if you asked me, but,” and here she swept to her feet, as if upborne by a rush of earnestness so intense and deeply felt that it was in itself a passion, “but I’ll give ’em up, for it’s a lot to give, for the man I know you are and—­and not for the man that’s been shirking life.”

Since the first moments after she had begun to voice her experiences, and what he called her merciless philosophy, he had crumpled down in his chair, and when she had sprung up, he had risen perfunctorily and wearily to his feet, but at her last words he had straightened up as if involuntarily every muscle grew tense, an outward and visible indication of his mental attitude.  Inherited and traditional pride was in the haughty and surprised uplift of his head; a bright flush had risen on his cheek and his eyes sparkled with a thousand wounded and angry reflections.

Whether or not she had intended to produce this effect by her words, she was undaunted by it, and went on:  “Jose tells me that you got a big place in England, just waiting for you to come and claim it, and you quit it and everything there because a girl turned you down.  It was sure a baby act.”

“I—­” he began to interrupt her.  There were few men who would have cared to ignore that chilled steel quality of Seagreave’s voice or, for the matter of that, the chilled steel look on his face.

But there were certain emotions the Pearl had never known, and they included remorse and fear.  “I ain’t finished yet,” the gesture with which she imposed his silence held her accustomed languor.  “I got to say that the man—­that’s you—­that fought all through the Boer war was no shirker, and the man who did some of the things you did in India—­you got some kind of a medal, didn’t you?—­what was it Jose called you?—­soldier of fortune—­well, you weren’t a quitter, anyway.”

She stretched out her arms to him and smiled, her compelling heart-shattering smile.  Ardor enveloped her like an aura; the beauty and color of her were like fragrance on the air.  “That’s the kind of man I want to marry, Harry, not a man that’s willing to live outside of life and work, and stay dead and buried here in these mountains.”

He did not bend to her by an inch.  Her smiles and her ardor splintered against chilled steel and fell unheeded.  “Is there anything else?” he asked, after a slight interval of silence, during which he had the appearance of waiting with a pronounced and punctilious courtesy for further words from her.