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Her head drooped, she avoided his steady, searching gaze

"What wages, Manella? None, you would say, except--love! You tell me you would be my woman,--and I know you mean it You would be my slave--you mean that, too But you would wantas love!--not in this world! There is aninetism of the netisether in order to keep this planet supplied with an ever new crop of fools,--but love! No, Manella! There is no such thing!"

Here he gently took her two hands away frohtly folded position on her boso, h to a child--"Except in the drea about poetry! The wild ani anih I would not be your man I quite believe that it is the natural instinct of the feood in the forest world, it doesn't alork aht of selection--quite a mistake of his I'enerally selects most vilely All the same he is an obstinate brute, and sticks to his brutish ideas as a snail sticks to its shell I am an obstinate brute!--I aht to choose my ooman, if I want one--which I don't,--or if ever I do want one--which I never shall!"

She drew her hands quickly frorasp There were tears in her splendid dark eyes

"You talk, you talk!" she said, with a kind of sob in her voice--"It is all talk with you--talk which I cannot understand! I don't WANT to understand!--I airl I cannot talk--but I can love! Ah yes, I can love! You say there is no such thing as love! What is it then, when one prays every night and ers to the bone for him?--when one would die to keep him from sickness and harm? What do you call it?"

He smiled

"Self-delusion, Manella! The beautiful self-delusion of every nature-bred woman when her fancy is attracted by a particular sort of ines hi but a devil!"