"I don't know exactly what I do mean," Anne laughed nervously. "He is so thrillingly dominant. He had not been in the house much more than thirty hours before he had lectured me on the narrowness of my life, indicated a more alluring future, kissed my hand, and reposed in me a trust upon which he said his future depended. And through all I have been as a school girl. He 's fascinating, Sara." She leaned forward and placed her hand upon her friend's knee. "Sara—now don't laugh, I 'm serious—"
"I'm not going to laugh, dear; go on."
"Sara, you know the world.… I thought I did, don't you know. But I 'm a child, a perfect simpleton. I said Prince Koltsoff was fascinating; I meant he fascinates me. He does really. Some time when he gets under full headway he is going to take me in his arms—that's the feeling; also that I shall let him, although the idea now fills me with dread."
"Why, Anne!"
"I know," continued the girl, "isn't it too absurd for words! But I am baring my soul. Do you marry a man because his eyes seem to draw you into them?—whose hand pressure seems to melt your will? Is that love?"
Sara regarded the girl for a few minutes without speaking. Then she lifted her brows.
"Is it love?" she said. "Ask yourself."
Anne shrugged her shoulders and grimaced helplessly.
"It might be, after all," she said. "I am sure I don't know."
"Yes, it might be," smiled Sara; "it's a question in which you must consider the personal equation. I am rather finicky about men who exude what seems to pass for love. They don't make good husbands. The best husband is the one who wins you, not takes you. For heaven's sake, Anne, when you marry, let your romance be clean, wholesome, natural; not a demonstration in psychic phenomena, to use a polite term."