of the moment, the wine of the springtide would
set their blood afire, and from the flames within us there is no escape.

"Come, come," she said, "you do not love me."

He protested.

"Ah!" she cried triumphantly, "how many sonnets would you give for me?
If you were a usurer in gold instead of in rhyme, I would ask how many
dollars. But it is unjust to pay in a coin that we value little. To a
man starving in gold mines, a piece of bread weighs more than all the
treasures of the earth. To you, I warrant your poems are the standard of
appreciation. How many would you give for me? One, two, three?"

"More."

"Because you think love would repay you with compound interest," she
observed merrily.

He laughed.

And when love turns to laughter the danger is passed for the moment.

XV

Thus three weeks passed without apparent change in their relations.
Ernest possessed a personal magnetism that, always emanating from him,
was felt most deeply when withdrawn. He was at all times involuntarily
exerting his power, which she ever resisted, always on the alert, always
warding off.

When at last pressure of work made his immediate departure for New York
imperative, he had not apparently gained the least ground. But Ethel
knew in her heart that she was fascinated, if not in love. The personal
fascination was supplemented by a motherly feeling toward Ernest that,
sensuous in essence, was in itself not far removed from love. She
struggled bravely and with external success against her emotions, never
losing sight of the fact that twenty and thirty are fifty.

Increasingly aware of her own weakness, she constantly attempted to
lead the conversation into impersonal channels, speaking preferably of
his work.

"Tell me," she said, negligently fanning herself, "what new inspiration
have you drawn from your stay at the seaside?"

"Why," he exclaimed enthusiastically, "volumes and volumes of it. I
shall write the great novel of my life after I am once more quietly
installed at Riverside Drive."

"The great American novel?" she rejoined.

"Perhaps."

"Who will be your hero--Clarke?"

There was a slight touch of malice in her words, or rather in the pause
between the penultimate word and the last. Ernest detected its presence,
and knew that her love for Reginald was dead. Stiff and cold it lay in
her heart's chamber--beside how many others?--all emboxed in the coffin
of memory.

"No," he replied after a while, a li