entrap him with it! The very memory was repulsive even yet.

But this--ah! this was different. This thing of light and air, this
dancing sunbeam, this creature of the morning, exquisite in every
detail, perfectly poised, swifter than thought, yet arresting at every
turn, vivid as a meteor, yet beyond all scrutiny, all ocular power of
comprehension, she set every nerve in him a-quiver. She seized upon his
fancy and flung it to and fro, catching a million colours in her radiant
flights. She made the hot blood throb in his temples. She beat upon the
door of his heart. She called back his vanished youth, the passion
unassuaged of his manhood. She appealed to him directly and personally.
She made him realize that he was the one man who had taught--and could
teach--her the meaning of life.

Then it was over. Like a glittering crystal shattered to fragments, his
dream of ecstasy collapsed. The noise around him was as the roar of
thundering breakers. But he sat mute in the midst of it, as one stunned.

Someone leaned over from behind and spoke to him. He was aware of a hand
upon his shoulder.

"What do you think of her?" said Ellis Grant in his ear. "Superb, isn't
she? Come and see her before she appears again!"

As if compelled by some power outside himself, Courteney rose. He edged
his way to the end of the row and joined the great man there. The whole
house was a seething turmoil of sound.

Grant was chuckling to himself as one well pleased. In Courteney's eyes
he looked stouter, more prosperous, more keenly business-like, than when