d her with a laugh that sent
her blood leaping again.

"My Dolores forgets she demanded my admiration for her treasures," he
said. "What would you have, splendid one? Shall I say these treasures
are still paltry, when I see their countless worth? Still I say you are
the treasure beyond price. These are but a little more fitting for you.
That is all. Am I forgiven?"

He leaped to his feet, seized her hand, and attempted to slip an arm
about her waist. She, lithe as a leopard, slipped from his grasp with a
glad laugh that rippled in a low murmur to his hot ears, and intensified
the glare that had come into his eyes. She failed to see that glare. It
was the glare of greed; stark and utter greed, that counted no cost and
brooked no opposition in driving for its ends.

"Thou art forgiven indeed!" she replied, panting and disheveled, a thing
of wondrous loveliness. "So far art thou forgiven that I shall put thy
heart to the grand test at once. Of thy fellows none can compare with
thee for scorn of wealth and desire of me. Sit down again, my man; let
us reveal our inmost hearts to each other."

She told him, keeping him at provoking distance, of her heart-hunger for
the outside world, the world of art and things of beauty. She thrilled
him with her vibrant voice, mesmerized him with her distant, caressing
touch and glorious, limpid eyes. She made his blood pulse hotly with
desire with her soft-spoken offer of self-surrender to the man who
should lead her from her sovereignty over human beasts and set her feet
in the high places of the earth.

"And with these my treasures, I shall make my man a king in truth," she
said, slipping along the couch toward him and laying both hands clasped
on his arm. She threw back her head, shaking loose her great masses of
lustrous hair, and poured her soul at him from half-closed, moist eyes
that gleamed like midnight pools in starlight. "Yet must my chosen man
assure me of his love for me, and his contempt for my riches. For,
though my treasures shall be his, yet will I be first in his heart or
forget him."

"And first you are, and shall be, Dolores," whispered Pearse, leaning
his chin on her forehead and glaring covetously at the littered wealth
of the chests. "What man of warm blood can see any other being or thing
when Dolores is by?"

"Then come. I believe thee," she said, rising slowly. "Come with me, my
man above price. See here."

She swept back a piece of tapestry at the rear