She did not move or change expression.  Yet he felt that her heart, her blood were going on again.

“Are you—­angry?” he asked.

“A thousand dollars a month seems an awful lot of money to me,” she said.

“It’s nothing—­nothing to what we’ll soon have.  Trust me.”  And back into his eyes flashed their former look.  “I’ve been sick.  I’m well again.  I shall get what I want.  If you want anything, you’ve only to ask for it.  I’ll get it.  I know how. . . .  I don’t prey, myself—­I’ve no fancy for the brutal sports.  But I teach lions how to prey, and I make them pay for the lessons.”  He laughed with an effervescing of young vitality and self-confidence that made him look handsome and powerful.  “In the future they’ll have to pay still higher prices.”

She was looking at him with weary, wondering, pathetic eyes that gazed from the pallor of her dead-white face mysteriously.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I was listening,” replied she.

“Doesn’t it make you happy—­what you are going to have?”

“No,” replied she.  “But it makes me content.”

With eyes suddenly suffused, he took her hand—­so gently.  “Dorothy,” he said, “you will try to love me?”

“I’ll try,” said she.  “You’ll be kind to me?”

“I couldn’t be anything else,” he cried.  And in a gust of passion he caught her to his breast and kissed her triumphantly.  “I love you—­and you’re mine—­mine!”

She released herself with the faint insistent push that seemed weak, but always accomplished its purpose.  Her lip was trembling.  “You said you’d be kind,” she murmured.

He gazed at her with a baffled expression.  “Oh—­I understand,” he said.  “And I shall be kind.  But I must teach you to love me.”

Her trembling lip steadied.  “You must be careful or you may teach me to hate you,” said she.

He studied her in a puzzled way, laughed.  “What a mystery you are!” he cried with raillery.  “Are you child or are you woman?  No matter.  We shall be happy.”

The taxicab was swinging to the curb.  In the restaurant he ordered an enormous meal.  And he ate enormously, and drank in due proportion.  She ate and drank a good deal herself—­a good deal for her.  And the results were soon apparent in a return of the spirits that are normal to twenty-one years, regardless of what may be lurking in the heart, in a dark corner, to come forth and torment when there is nothing to distract the attention.

“We shall have to live quietly for a while,” said he.  “Of course you must have clothes-at once.  I’ll take you shopping to-morrow.”  He laughed grimly.  “Just at present we can get only what we pay cash for.  Still, you won’t need much.  Later on I’ll take you over to Paris.  Does that attract you?”

Her eyes shone.  “How soon?” she asked.