The Fighting Chance

Yes, at last the lifelong battle was on. He knew it. He knew, too, whatever his fate with her or without her, he must always go on with the battle for the safe-guarding of that manhood the consciousness of which she had aroused.

All he knew was that, through the medium of his love for her, whatever in him of the spiritual remained, or had been generated, was now awake, alive, strong, vital, indestructible--an impalpable current flowing from a sane intelligence, through medium of her, back to the eternal truth, returning always, always, to the deathless source from whence it came.

Lingering over the fruit, the champagne breaking in the glasses standing on the table between them, rim to rim, Leila and Plank had fallen into a low, desultory, yet guarded exchange of words and silences.

Sylvia sprang up and pushed her chair into the farther corner against the balcony rail, where no light fell except the radiance of the stars. Here Siward joined her, dragging his chair around so that it faced her as she leaned back, tilted against a shadowy column.

"Is this Bohemianism, Stephen? If it is, I rather like it. Don't you? You are going to smoke now, aren't you? Ah, that is delightful!" daintily sniffing the aroma from his cigarette. "It always reminds me of you--there on the cliffs, that first day. Do you remember?--the smoke from your cigarette whirling up in my face? … You say you remember. … Oh, of course there's nothing else to say when a girl asks you … is there? Oh, I won't argue with you, if you insist that you do remember. You will not be like any other man if you do, that's all. … The little things that women remember! … And believe that men remember! It is pitiful in a way. There! I am not going to spill over, and I don't care a copper penny whether you really do remember or not! … Yes, I do care! … Oh, all women care. It is their first disappointment to learn how much a man can forget and still remember to care for them--a little! … Stephen, I said a little; and that is all that you are permitted to care for me; isn't it? … Please, don't. You are deliberately beginning to say things! … Stephen, you silly! you are making love to me!"

In the darkness his hand encountered hers on the wooden rail, and the tremor of the contact silenced her. She freed one finger, then let it rest with its slender fellow-prisoners. There was no use in trying to speak just then--utterly useless her voice in the soft, rounded throat imprisoned by the swelling pulses that tightened and hammered and tightened.