"Naturally," he answered, smiling. "How can I be particularly amiable to a young lady who is trying to ruin me?"
She looked at him earnestly. In her fashionable attire she presented, indeed, a very different appearance from the eager, brown-skinned girl, with the shapely limbs and delightful carriage, whom he had first seen at Rakney. Yet he fancied that she was trying to reawaken his earlier impressions of her,—innocent of vanity as he was, he could not misunderstand her appealing gaze!
"I do not want to ruin you," she declared. "I do not want to do anything of the sort. Isn't there enough for both of us? Why should we fight?"
He sighed. "How can we compromise?" he asked. "The mine does not belong to me any longer. I sold it years ago to the Incorporated Gold-Mines Association."
"You could not sell what didn't belong to you," she objected.
"They paid me the money for it, at any rate," he answered.
"If I win," she asked, "who will lose the money?"
"The Incorporated Gold-Mines Association," he answered, "but they would have a claim upon me. I suppose, eventually, that I should."
She held out her hand—no longer brown and stained with seaweed, but delicately gloved, perfumed, elegant. "Let us be friends," she said. "I am sorry I was rough to your little ally! I couldn't help it. She was in my way. I chose the only means. We needn't consider her,—you and I are different sort of people. We know what we want. I am not only a money grubber. I want the rest of life, the whole thing,—the music, the poetry, the passion! Remember my wretched, starved existence! Do you wonder that I am on fire to pass on to the other things. It isn't the money—your money or any one else's! I want life! I want the wine and the spices! I want the dregs! Can't you understand? You must!—you must!"
Her passionate eyes sought his, her body swayed towards him. Deane looked downwards upon his blotter. In the outer office he could hear the clicking of typewriters, the subdued murmur of voices. Through the half-opened window came floating in the everlasting chorus,—the falling footsteps upon the pavement, the jingling of hansom bells, the far-off roar of the heavier traffic. All these things seemed to him curiously unreal. He was conscious only of the intensity of the moment, the pleading of her eyes, the warm breath upon his cheeks. He heard the rustling of her skirts. He felt that she was rising from her chair. Then he braced himself for his effort.