She was, indeed, beautiful and alluring as she lay in the steamer-chair, questioning him with her anxious eyes. The personal power of her developed, intelligent face excited him, and made him totally forgetful of the Erards.
“You think me pretty bad,” she exclaimed, dropping her hand from her face.
“No!” he began to tilt back and forth once more abstractedly. “Of the two souls—the one that demands, the other that accepts—you are the demanding, absorbing kind. Most women accept, ultimately.”
They paused, embarrassed at the distance they had gone from the conventional.
“I am sorry,” he added softly, “for I don’t believe there is any peace for your kind. You go flaming about the earth, until death extinguishes you.”
“Oh! to flame, to burn, to feel,” she appealed for his alliance in her revolt. He rose from his chair and paced back and forth, his face flushed with an excitement deeper than hers.
“That is not all,” he murmured to quiet himself. “There are mighty laws which are holy. And there is holiness itself, a state of spirit in the face of our Lord the Master, and that is peace. It is possible, yes, as possible as the intoxication of passion.”
“If I take my life in my own hands, and go where I can spend it joyfully,” she spoke deliberately, “then?”
“Then,” his low voice swept by her, “you are burned to ashes.”
“But I shall do it,” she exclaimed defiantly, “I think. Yes! I shall—”