She set down the teapot and again she laughed softly. In her
plain black gown, very simple, adorned only by the little white
bow at her neck, quakerlike and spotless, with the added color in
her cheeks, too, which seemed to have come there during the last
few moments, she was a very alluring person.
"He can't," she declared. "He is married already."
Then there came to Tavernake an inspiration, an inspiration so
wonderful that he gripped the sides of his chair and sat up.
Here, after all, was the way out for him, the way out from his
garden of madness, the way to escape from that mysterious,
paralyzing yoke whose burden was already heavy upon his
shoulders. In that swift, vivid moment he saw something of the
truth. He saw himself losing all his virility, the tool and
plaything of this woman who had bewitched him, a poor, fond
creature living only for the kind words and glances she might
throw him at her pleasure. In those few seconds he knew the true
from the false. Without hesitation, he gripped with all the
colossal selfishness of his unthinking sex at the rope which was
thrown to him.
"Well, then, I do," he said firmly. "Will you marry me,
Beatrice?"
She threw her head back and laughed, laughed long and softly, and
Tavernake, simple and unversed in the ways of women, believed
that she was indeed amused.
"Neither you nor any one else, dear Leonard!" she exclaimed.
"But I want you to," he persisted. "I think that you will.
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