l the youth in his heart rose
and claimed its share of life and love and happiness.

"Let me go," she said at last, and drew away from him, flushed as a dawn
and rapturous as a sunrise.

"No, never again," and stretched out his arms, but she slipped behind
the table, putting it between them. "Sit down," she commanded, "and
build up the fire. I want to talk, talk a long time, all night maybe."

"I hope so," he said ardently, and, obeying her, stooped to place fresh
logs on the embers. "But what is there to talk about? We've said and
will continue to say all there is in the world worth saying. I love you.
Do you love me?"

"Maybe you won't want to say that after you've heard me." She had
leaned forward, her arms on her knees, her eyes on the flames which
leaped from dry twig to dry twig of the burning logs and on the shower
of sparks which every minute or so swept up the chimney.

"You hit it off pretty well when you said that all I really cared for
was money and jewels and my dancing and the big audiences and all that."
Her eyes had narrowed so that the gleaming light that shone through her
lashes was like a mere line of fire. "You see, I got to play the game. I
got to. Nothing but winning and winning big ever's going to suit me. I
saw that when I was awful young. I sort of looked out on life and it
seemed to me that most people spent their lives like flies, flying
around a while without any purpose, trying to buzz in the sun if they
could, and by and by dropping off the window pane."

"Nothing but winning will suit you," he said drearily. "You are only
repeating what I told you." All the life, the passion had gone out of
his voice. "And I'm no prize, heaven knows!"

"I ain't through yet," she said. "I never did talk much. I guess I'm
going to talk more to-night than I ever talked in my life, but I always
saw everything that was going on around me, and it didn't take me long
to make out that all you'll get in life is a kick and a crust if you
haven't got some kind of power in your hands."

"God, you're hard, hard as iron!" The room rang with the echoes of his
mirthless laughter. "Five, three minutes ago, you were in my arms, soft,
yielding, trembling, giving me back kiss for kiss, and now you sit
there expounding your merciless philosophy."

"It ain't me that's merciless," she returned, apparently unmoved, "it's
life. You think my dancing's great, so does everybody; so it is. Well,
it didn't grow. I made it." H