me?"

She smiled confidently up at his intent face. "Oh, yes." Yet she
hoped that he would not kiss her--just then. The delicacy of her
longing and need were far removed from material expressions. This,
of course, meant marriage; but marriage was money, comfort, the cold
thing her mother had impressed on her. Love, her love, was a mistake
here. But in a little it would all come straight and she would
understand. She no longer had confidence in her mother's wisdom.

In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate appeal, he crushed
her against his face. Whatever that had filled her with hope, she
thought, was being torn from her. A sickening aversion over which
she had no control made her stark in his arms. The memories of the
painted coarse satiety of women and the sly hard men for which they
schemed, the loose discussions of calculated advances and sordid
surrenders, flooded her with a loathing for what she passionately
needed to be beautiful.

Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a fragile ardor
persisted. If she could explain, not only might he understand, but
be able to make her own longing clear and secure. But all she
managed to say was, "If you kiss me again I think it will kill me."
Even that failed to stop him. "You were never alive," he asserted.
"I'll put some feeling into you. It has been done before with
marble."

Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately.

Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He