The Devil

"Better now, old girl?"

"Yes. I'm all right, Will. Dear old boy--I'm all right."

Lying on the bed and immensely enjoying his delayed pipe, he watched her. She wandered about the room, moved one of the two candles from the mantel-shelf to the chest of drawers, put her blouse on the seat of a chair and her skirt across the back of it. Then with slow graceful movements she began to uncoil her hair, and as her smooth white arms went up and down, the candlelight sent gigantic wavering shadows across the wall-paper to the ceiling. Beneath one of her elbows he could see right out through the open window into a dark void. From his position on the bed nothing was visible out there, but he could fill it if he cared to do so--the scattered dust of street lamps below and the scattered dust of solar systems above.

Soon he puffed lazily, drowsily; then he nodded, and then the pipe fell from his mouth.

"Hullo!" And muttering, he roused himself. "I must 'a' dropped off. Might 'a' set the bed on fire."

Mavis, in her chemise and stockings now, with her hair down, was still at the dressing-table. She did not turn when he spoke to her. While he dozed she had fetched the other candle, and in the double light she was staring intently at the reflection of her face in the looking-glass.

Dale slipped softly off the bed, moved across to the dressing-table, and with explosive vigor clasped her in his arms.

"Oh, how you frightened me!" She had given a little squeal, and she tried to release herself. "Let me go--please."

"Rot!" And he lifted her from the ground, and carried her across to the bed.

"Will--let me go. I--I'm tired;" and she began to cry. "Be kind to me, Will." The words came in feeble entreaty, between weak sobs. "Be kind to me--my husband--not only now--but always."

She sobbed and shivered; and he, holding her in his arms, soothed her with gentle murmurs. "My pretty Mav! My poor little bird. Go to sleepy-by, then. Tuck her up, and send her to sleep, a dear little Mav." At the touch of her coldly trembling limbs, at the sight of her tears, all the sensual desire lessened its throb, and the purer side of his love began to subjugate him. That was the greatest of her powers--to tame the beast in him, to lift him from the depths to the heights, to make him feel as though he was her father instead of her lover, because she herself was pure and good as a child. "There--there, don't cry, my pretty Mav."