Alaire had gone to her favorite after-dinner refuge, a nook on one of the side-galleries, where there was a wide, swinging wicker couch; and there in a restful obscurity fragrant with unseen flowers she had prepared to spend the evening with her dreams.

She did not hear Dave’s automobile arrive.  Her first intimation of his presence came with the sound of his heel upon the porch.  When he appeared it was almost like the materialization of her uppermost thought—­quite as if a figure from her fancy had stepped forth full clad.

She rose and met him, smiling.  “How did you know I wanted to see you?” she inquired.

Dave took her hand and looked down at her, framing a commonplace reply.  But for some reason the words lay unspoken upon his tongue.  Alaire’s informal greeting, her parted lips, the welcoming light in her eyes, had sent them flying.  It seemed to him that the dim half-light which illumined this nook emanated from her face and her person, that the fragrance which came to his nostrils was the perfume of her breath, and at the prompting of these thoughts all his smothered longings rose as if at a signal.  As mutinous prisoners in a jail delivery overpower their guards, so did Dave’s long-repressed emotions gain the upper hand of him now, and so swift was their uprising that he could not summon more than a feeble, panicky resistance.

The awkwardness of the pause which followed Alaire’s inquiry strengthened the rebellious impulses within him, and quite unconsciously his friendly grasp upon her fingers tightened.  For her part, as she saw this sudden change sweep over him, her own face altered and she felt something within her breast leap into life.  No woman could have failed to read the meaning of his sudden agitation, and, strange to say, it worked a similar state of feeling in Alaire.  She strove to control herself and to draw away, but instead found that her hand had answered his, and that her eyes were flashing recognition of his look.  All in an instant she realized how deathly tired of her own struggle she had become, and experienced a reckless impulse to cast away all restraint and blindly meet his first advance.  She had no time to question her yearnings; she seemed to understand only that this man offered her rest and security; that in his arms lay sanctuary.

To both it seemed that they stood there silently, hand in hand, for a very long time, though in reality there was scarcely a moment of hesitation on the part of either.  A drunken, breathless instant of uncertainty, then Alaire was on Dave’s breast, and his strength, his ardor, his desire, was throbbing through her.  Her bare arms were about his neck; a sigh, the token of utter surrender, fluttered from her throat.  She raised her face to his and their lips melted together.

For a time they were all alone in the universe, the center of all ecstasy.  Dave was whispering wild incoherencies as Alaire lay in his embrace, her limbs relaxed, her flesh touching his, her body clinging to his.