ourselves. I can't remember just
what I did. Probably laid my hand on her arm with intent. Well, Vi, she
didn't thrill the way your blood and mine has thrilled an occasion. She
just shrank. Then she frowned, and the frown made her look really ugly.
'Don't forget,' she whispered to me, 'that I'm a married woman. I never
forget it--not for one minute.'"

Leighton blew a cloud of smoke at the fire. It twisted into wreaths and
whirled up the chimney.

"Quite a facer, eh?" he went on. "But it didn't down me. It only woke me
up. 'Have you ever had a man sit down with you beside him and hold you
so,' I asked her, 'with your back to his knees, your head in his hands
and his eyes and his mouth close to yours--a man that wasn't trying to
get to a single goal, but was content to linger with you in the land of
dreams?'

"Believe me, Vi, the soul of a pure woman that every man thinks he has a
right to make love to is the shyest of all souls. Such a woman sheds
innuendo and actions with the proverbial ease of a duck disposing of a
shower. But just words--the right words--will bring tears to her eyes.
Well, I'd stumbled on the right words."

"'No,' she said, with a far-away look, 'I've never had a man hold me
like that. Why?'"

"'Why?' I said, 'Because I will--some day.'"

"'You!'"

"I can't give you all the derision she put into that 'you!' Then her
face and her eyes went as hard as flint. 'Money?' she asked, and I
answered, 'No; love.'"

Leighton looked at his cigarette end and flipped it into the fire.

"She laughed, of course, and when she laughed she became to me the most
unattainable and consequently the most desirable of women. I was at that
age.

"Well, to cut the story short, I went mad over her, but it wasn't the
madness that loses its head. It was just cunning--the cunning with a
touch of fanaticism that always reaches its goal. I laid seige to her by
day and by night, and at last, one day, she sent for me. She was alone;
I could see that she meant us to be alone. She made me sit down. She
stood in front of me. To my eyes she had become beautiful. I wanted her,
really wanted her.

"What she said was this: 'I've sent for you because, if you keep on,
you're going to win. No, don't get up. Before you keep on, I want to
tell you something about myself--about what I believe with all my soul.
I don't have to tell you that I'm a good woman; you know it. The first
time you saw me dance you were rather disgusted, wer