"Oh! Mummy," she sobbed, "I love him so! I love him so! Let us go home before my heart breaks!"
Mrs. Carter took up the letter again. "My mines are now in bonanza," she read.
"We will take the next steamer," she said quietly. "And upon second thought I think we had better not cable. Better make your denial in person; it will be more effective."
While Grace Carter was speeding homeward with a heavy heart, out at the VN ranch Constance Brevoort was In a delirium of feverish happiness, and Douglass, thrilled by her passionate abandon, had not yet tired. Upon him she showered all the affection so long repressed; and her fervor and intensity, which awed him not a little, was very flattering to his vanity. Too subtly wise to risk wearying him with too great exactions on his time, she was rather shy and disposed to hold him aloof, thus skillfully shifting the onus of importunity on to his shoulders and so keeping alive and burning the flame at which she had lighted all her hopes. But in the occasional moments of their intimate communion she flooded him with sweetness even as the "Serpent of the old Nile" washed reason from the mind of Antony and laved his soul with living fire. Of what the world might think or say, of her husband's fury and probable revenge, of her friends Inevitable ostracism she thought with indifference if at all; in this new-found happiness everything else was lost. She lived entirely in the present, obstinately refusing to reckon with the future. Once, when he hesitatingly broached the subject of their future relations, she stopped his mouth with kisses and breathed Into his ear the sophistry of the old Tent-maker of Naishapur:
"Ah, fill the Cup; what boots it to repeat How Time is slipping underneath our Feet? Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY, Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet?"
She was very frankly in love with him, and he not at all with her. So far as she was concerned he was simply a wolf, with a wolf's wild desire. Of course, the situation had Its attractions, and the risks incurred lent an added charm to this danger-loving young animal. He was infatuated with her physically, but that was all. Of this she was fully conscious, but with a hope born of desperation she determined to hold him while she could; who knows what a day may bring forth? Anselm Brevoort was getting old; she would be a very wealthy widow; and this man, despite his very humble station, had been reared in luxury and had a keen appreciation of the higher amenities. She was more than content to drift, leaving the ultimate harbor in the lap of the gods.