f a complicated piece of machinery. After he had exhausted his
rage, he stood again severe and unbending looking down at the fire, but
the touch of her fingers at the nape of his neck effaced instantly the
hard lines round his mouth; his eyes wavered uneasily; his lips trembled
slightly. Starting with the unresisting rapidity of a particle of
iron--which, quiescent one moment, leaps in the next to a powerful
magnet--he moved forward, caught her in his arms and pressed her
violently to his breast. He released her as suddenly, and she stumbled a
little, stepped back, breathed quickly through her parted lips, and said
in a tone of pleased reproof--

"O Fool-man! And if you had killed me in your strong arms what would you
have done?"

"You want to live . . . and to run away from me again," he said gently.
"Tell me--do you?"

She moved towards him with very short steps, her head a little on one
side, hands on hips, with a slight balancing of her body: an approach
more tantalizing than an escape. He looked on, eager--charmed. She spoke
jestingly.

"What am I to say to a man who has been away three days from me? Three!"
she repeated, holding up playfully three fingers before Willems' eyes.
He snatched at the hand, but she was on her guard and whisked it behind
her back.

"No!" she said. "I cannot be caught. But I will come. I am coming myself
because I like. Do not move. Do not touch me with your mighty hands, O
child!"

As she spoke she made a step nearer, then another. Willems did not stir.
Pressing against him she stood on tiptoe to look into his eyes, and
her own seemed to grow bigger, glistening and tender, appealing and
promising. With that look she drew the man's soul away from him through
his immobile pupils, and from Willems' features the spark of reason
vanished under her gaze and was replaced by an appearance of physical
well-being, an ecstasy of the senses which had taken possession of his
rigid body; an ecstasy that drove out regrets, hesitation and doubt,
and proclaimed its terrible work by an appalling aspect of idiotic
beatitude. He never stirred a limb, hardly breathed, but stood in stiff
immobility, absorbing the delight of her close contact by every pore.

"Closer! Closer!" he murmured.

Slowly she raised her arms, put them over his shoulders, and clasping
her hands at the back of his neck, swung off the full length of her
arms. Her head fell back, the eyelids dropped slightly, and her thick
hair