t godlike one added to it. As an artist it was his supreme
hour. He painted as he had never painted before.

His love for Tony ran the whole gamut. He loved her passionately, found
it exquisite torture to have her in his arms when they danced and to
have still to bank the fires which consumed him and of which she only
dimly guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to
a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his
own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her
day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her
shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of
beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place
apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. He
loved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some other man might
be near her when he might not, might dance with her, covet her, kiss
her. He hated all men because of her and particularly he hated with
black hate the man whom he was wronging daily by his silence, his
cousin, John Massey.

Beneath all this strange, sad welter of emotion deeper still in Alan
Massey's heart lay the tragic conviction that he would never win Tony,
that his own sins would somehow rise to strike at him like a snake out of
the grass. He had lost faith in his luck, had lost it strangely enough
when luck had laid at his feet that most desirable of all gifts, Jim
Roberts' timely death.

In the House on the Hill, things were very quiet, missing the gay
presence of the two younger Holidays and with those at home cumbered with
cares and perplexity and grief.

Things were easier for Ruth than for Larry. It was less difficult for her
to play the part of quiet friendship than for him, partly because her
love was a much less tempestuous affair and partly because a woman nearly
always plays a part of any kind with more facility than a man does. And
Larry Holiday was temperamentally unfit to play any part whatsoever. He
was a Yea-Yea and Nay-Nay person.

The simplicity of the girl's role was also very largely created by her
lover's rigid self control. She took her cue from his quietness and felt
that things could not be so bad after all. At least they were together.
Neither had driven the other away from the Hill by any unconsidered act
or word. Ruth had no idea that being with her under the tormenting
circumstances was scarcely undivided happ