perforce and was madder over her
than ever, feted and worshiped and adored her inordinately when he was
with her, deluged her with flowers and poetry and letters between times,
called her up daily and nightly by telephone just to hear her voice, if
he might not see her face.

So superficially Tony conquered. But she was not over-proud of her
victory. She knew that whether she saw Alan or not he was always in the
under-current of her thoughts and feelings. In the midst of other
occupations she caught herself wondering whether he had written her,
whether she would find his flowers when she got home, where he was,
what he was doing, if he was thinking of her as she of him. She wanted
him most irrationally when she forbade his coming to her. She looked
forward to those few hours spent with him as the only time when she was
fully alive, dreamed them over afterward, knew they meant a hundredfold
more to her than those she spent with any other man or woman. She wore
his flowers, pored over his long, beautiful, impassioned letters,
devoured the books of poetry he sent her, danced with him as often and
as long as she dared, gave her soul more and more into his keeping, the
more so perhaps in that he was so tenderly reverential of her body,
never even touching her lips with his, though his eyes often told a
less moderate story.

The orgy over she was again doing well with her work at the school. She
knew that. Her teachers praised her gifts and her progress. Without any
vanity she could not help seeing that she was forging ahead of others who
had started even with her, had more real talent perhaps than most of
those with whom she worked and played. But she took no pride in these
things. For equally clearly she saw that she was not doing half what she
might have done, would have done, had there been no Alan Massey in the
city and in her heart. She had a divided allegiance and a divided
allegiance is a hard thing to live with as a daily companion.

But she would not have had it otherwise. Not for a moment did she ever
wish to go back to those free days when love was but a name and the flame
had not blown so dangerously near.

As for Alan Massey himself, he alternated between moods which were starry
pinnacles of ecstasy and others which were bottomless pits of despair. He
lived for two things only--his hours with Tony and his work. For he had
begun to paint again, magnificently, furiously, with all his old power
and a new almos