ere divine, but so were the lights
of the town. Divinity fired their souls, merging each in each; but as
truly it fired their clasping hands, their lips trembling to kiss.

Maxine--removed by fabulous distances from Max, from the studio, from
all accepted things--breathed her wonderment in an unconscious appeal.

"Speak to me!"

And Blake, awed and enraptured, whispered his answer.

"There is nothing to say that you do not know. I worship you. I bent my
knee and kissed the hem of your garment the first moment it brushed my
path. There is nothing to say that you do not know. I have waited all my
life for this."

"All your life?"

"All my life. But love is not reckoned by time. One dreams--and one
wakes."

"You dreamed--" She closed her eyes, her ears drank in the cadences of
his voice.

"Always! As a child, I dreamed over my play; as a boy, I dreamed over
my books--and as a man, over my loves. I was never in love with
woman--always in love with love."

"And now?"

"I am awake--I have come into my inheritance! My love! My love!" It was
an instant of intense sensation. She could feel the beating of his
heart; his fingers and hers were interlaced. "Maxine! Open your eyes!
Look at me!"

Obediently--any woman to any man--she opened them and met his gaze.

"You know? You understand?"

She stood rigid, her eyes wide, her nostrils dilated--a creature swaying
upon the verge of an abyss, contemplating a plunge into space.

"Maxine!" he said again. "Maxine!"

It was the primitive human cry. She heard and acknowledged it in every
fibre of her being; she drew a swift, sharp breath, then, with a free
gesture, cast her arms about his neck.

"Ned! Ned! Say again that you love me! Say it a thousand, say it a
million times and for every time you say it, I will tell you twice that
I love you."

Passion, intoxication sped the words, and Blake's mouth, closing upon
hers, broke the ecstasy of speech.

"I love you! I worship you! You are my life. You are myself."

Reality vibrated through his speech; and Maxine, hearing, lost herself.
With arms still clasped about him, she leaned her body backward, gazing
into his face.

"Again! Say it again!"

"You are my life! We are one! Maxine! Maxine!" His glance burned her,
his arms were close about her. With a sudden ardent movement, she
caught his face between her hands, drew it down, and kissed it full upon
the mouth, not once but many times, fiercely, closely; then, with