“You do not need to answer in words.” His Highness pressed the point. “The idea of rectitude, grafted onto women by convention, embarrasses you. Don’t think of yielding to me. Think, rather, of yielding to your worse and greater self. You, so lately and so rarely physical, must share my mental hunger for the appetites. You will feed me with thoughts of fulfillment? This passion that you have aroused in mortal males, since born of the mind, on the mind must have violent recoil. You will tell me—will teach me? I shall not bore you. If the response of men diverted you, how much greater the diversion of a god’s response! Is it not an ambition worthy even of you—to inspire the passion of an immortal whose fervor has not been spent in birth or life or death? Think of my tireless excesses, of my ingenuity, of my eternal crave for you! Think of the procreative possibilities of a superman!”
“You explained to me yourself,” the girl-soul sobbed, “that nothing could be created in Gehenna—that down here it is always too late.”
“It is never too late for me to do worse.”
“But this heir you speak of—must he not come of a mother as well as a father? I, at least, am subject to the rules that govern earthlings. I have been born of the flesh and I have died.”
“You quibble.” His frown showed irritation. “Aren’t you lifted to my estate by our alliance? What you were doesn’t matter, except that your late mortality brings new vigor to our line. What you are becomes merged in me. What you shall be——”
The hand that pressed up her arm and gripped her neck pricked as with many needles from his impatience. Her head he drew backward, as he lifted to his knees on the couch and leaned over her. Her eyes dilated under the close gaze of his. Her lips moved to the syllables of his slow, low declaration.
“When the thought-lust in you has conquered your affectations—from the moment of the consummation of the union of our minds—you shall be a goddess—my goddess—for aye.”
Strangely enough, his egotism did not offend her. An expression of power, it bade fair to convince her. Warning herself that she must not be convinced, she tried to get from his grasp.
But he held her. “I’d love to love you, sweet Grief,” he murmured close to her lips. “Ask me to kiss you, Dolores, as once you asked a man of Earth. Beg me to take you, you devil’s desire. Let our moment of forever start now.”
His reminder helped her to tear her will from his and throw it, like a tangible thing, to the thought of John. Pushing him away, she found voice to defy him.