"I'm a tainted thing—amusing, good to look at, to chat with, to while away the time with, like the high class demi-monde; but for anything more—no! no!"
"You don't think that," he replied.—"You know——"
"I know what the world says of a married woman who does as I have done. It may tolerate her but a man never marries her—or if he does the world punishes him by loss of caste."
He leaned closer, bending down until her hair brushed his face and its perfume rose about him like a cloud.
"I am ready to risk it, dear one," he whispered. "I am ready to marry you the moment you are free."
"You are ready to marry me?" she breathed. "No! no! Montague, I was not playing for that, I was not——"
"Stephanie, dearest, don't you love me?" he asked.
She looked at him steadily an instant—then over her face broke the entrancing smile, and she put up her arm and drew his face close to hers.
"Yes, sweetheart," she whispered—and kissed him on the lips.