run away for all time?"

Then, as in muffled accents she besought him to be patient with her, he
softened magically and for the first time spoke of love.

"Don't you know you have wrenched the very heart out of me, you little
brown witch? I loved you from the very first moment of our dance
together. You've been too much for me all through. I had to have you. I
simply had to have you."

She trembled afresh at his words, but she clung closer. If the fear
deepened, so also did the fascination. She tried to picture him as
hers--hers, and failed. He was so fine, so splendid, so much too big for
her.

He went on, dropping his voice lower, his breath warm upon her neck. "Are
you going to take all and give--nothing, Daphne? Did they make you
without a heart, I wonder? Like a robin that mates afresh a dozen times
in a season? Haven't you anything to give me, little sweetheart? Are you
going to keep me waiting for a long, long time, and then send me empty
away?"

That moved her. That he should stoop to plead with her seemed so amazing,
almost a fabulous state of affairs.

With a little sob, she lifted her face at last. "Oh, Apollo!" she said
brokenly. "Apollo the magnificent! I am all yours--all yours! But
don't--don't take too much--at a time!"

The plea must have touched him, accompanied as it was by that full
surrender. He held her a moment, looking down into her eyes with the
fiery possessiveness subdued to a half-veiled tenderness in his own.

Then, very gently, even with reverence, he bent his face to hers. "Give
me--just what you can spare, then, little sweetheart!" he said. "I can
always come again for more now."

She slipped her arms around his neck, and shyly, childishly, she kissed
the lips that had devoured her own so mercilessly the night before.

"Yes--yes, I will always give you more!" she said tremulously.

He took her face between his hands and kissed her in return, not
violently, but with confidence. "That seals you for my very own," he
said. "You will never run away from me again?"

But she would not promise that. The memory of the previous night still
scorched her intolerably whenever her thoughts turned that way.

"I shan't want to run away if--if you stay as you are now," she told him
confusedly.

He laughed in his easy way. "Oh, Daphne, I shall have a lot to teach you
when we are married. How soon do you think you can be ready?"

She started in his hold at the question, and then quickly g