the principal of a nightly adventure.... This was untrue.

It was before the time of native concerts on the sea-drive, but in the
night itself, and in the soft undertone from the sea, there was ardent
atmosphere--with this woman beside him. The deeper current of his
thoughts rushed with memories, but upon the surface played the adorable
present, swift with adjustments as her swiftly-moving arms. The wonder
of Womanhood was ever-new to him. Mighty gusts of animation surged
through his body. He spoke from queer angles of consciousness, and did
not remember. She could laugh charmingly.... To her, the Hour uprose.
Here was clear manhood of twenty (and such an unhurt boy he had proved
to be)--to make her very own!... She had taught herself to live by the
hour; had forfeited the right to be loved long. She knew the time would
soon come, when she could not hold nor attract men. It comes always to
women who dissipate themselves among the many. Yet she loved the love
of an hour; was a connoisseur of the love-tokens of men to her; no
material loss was counted in the balance against a winning such as this
promised to be. Here was a big intact passion which she called unto
herself with every art; her developed senses felt it pouring upon her;
this was a drug to die for. It made her brave and filled her mind with
dreams--as wine does to some men. Already he was giving her love--of a
sort that older men withhold from her kind. She put her hand upon his
wrist--and told the native to drive them home.

... They sat in a hammock together on the rear balcony of the
Block-House. It had been a dangerous moment passing through the house.
There had been embarrassments, the telltale artifices of the
establishment, but she would not suffer the work of the ride to be torn
down. She held him in enchantment by sheer force of will; and now they
were alone, and she was building again. There was wine. Over the