figure. Softly her hands crept over the silky back of his waistcoat,
under his coats, and as they stirred, his blood flushed up, and up
again, with fire, till all Siegmund was hot blood, and his breast was
one great ache.

He crushed her to him--crushed her in upon the ache of his chest. His
muscles set hard and unyielding; at that moment he was a tense, vivid
body of flesh, without a mind; his blood, alive and conscious, running
towards her. He remained perfectly still, locked about Helena, conscious
of nothing.

She was hurt and crushed, but it was pain delicious to her. It was
marvellous to her how strong he was, to keep up that grip of her like
steel. She swooned in a kind of intense bliss. At length she found
herself released, taking a great breath, while Siegmund was moving his
mouth over her throat, something like a dog snuffing her, but with his
lips. Her heart leaped away in revulsion. His moustache thrilled her
strangely. His lips, brushing and pressing her throat beneath the ear,
and his warm breath flying rhythmically upon her, made her vibrate
through all her body. Like a violin under the bow, she thrilled beneath
his mouth, and shuddered from his moustache. Her heart was like fire in
her breast.

Suddenly she strained madly to him, and, drawing back her head, placed
her lips on his, close, till at the mouth they seemed to melt and fuse
together. It was the long, supreme kiss, in which man and woman have one
being, Two-in-one, the only Hermaphrodite.

When Helena drew away her lips, she was exhausted. She belonged to that
class of 'dreaming women' with whom passion exhausts itself at the