THE patent-leather dressing case lay open on a bureau, spilling a small cascade of ivory toilet implements, a severely-plain black dinner gown lay limp, dully shimmering, over the back of a chair, and, on the bed, a soft, white heap of undergarments gave out a seductive odor of lavender. “Cigarettes in the leather box,” she indicated; “take some outside.” A screened door opened upon a boxlike balcony, cut into the angle of the roof; and Anthony, conscious of the warm weight of a guiding arm, found himself upon it. He seated himself on the railing, and lit a cigarette. He must go in a minute, he thought.

The lights had vanished from the valley, at his back the risen moon dimmed the stars, turned the leaves silver grey. A wan ray fell upon a clump of bushes below—lilacs, but the blooms had wilted, gone. The screen door opened, and Mrs. Dallam was at his side; she sank into a chair, the rosy blur of a cigarette in her fingers; she wore a loose wrap of deep green silk, open at her throat upon the white web beneath; in the obscurity her eyes were as black, as lustreless, as ebony, her mouth was a purple stain.

She smoked silently, gazing into the night. He would go now, he decided, and moved from his place on the rail. But with clinging fingers she caught his wrist, reproachfully lifting a velvety gaze. “I will not be left alone,” she declared; “I simply must have some one with me... you, or I will get despondent. You are—no, I won't say young, that would make you cross; you are like that fabulous fountain the Spaniards hunted in Florida, I want to drink deep, deep.”

Anthony's resolution wavered; it was early; it pleased him that so fine a creature should desire his presence; an unhappy note in her voice moved him to pity. She was lonely, and he was alone—here; why should they not support each other? He leaned, close to her, upon the sloping roof. She talked little; she laughed once, a low, silvery peal whose echo ran up and down his spine.

They heard a servant closing the shutters, the doors, below them, and the sound linked Anthony to Mrs. Dallam in a feeling of pervading intimacy. She rose, and stood pressed against his side, and his heart beat instantly unsteady. The night grew strangely oppressive, there was a roll of distant, muffled thunder; he turned to her with a commonplace about the heat, when her arms went about his neck, and she kissed him full, slowly, upon the lips. Unconsciously he held her supple body to him. She leaned back against his arms, her eyes shut and lips parted. A terrible and brute tyranny of desire welled up within him, sweeping away every vestige of control, of memory. The sky whirled in his vision, the substantial world vanished in a smother of flaming mists.

Then he released her so suddenly that she fell against the rail, recovering her poise with difficulty. Anthony stumbled back, drawing his hand across his brow. “What... what damned perfume's on you?” he demanded hoarsely.

“None at all,” she assured him, “I never... Why, Anthony, are you ill?”

Wave after wave of sweetness enveloped him, choking, nauseating, stinging his eyes, extinguishing the fire within him, turning the lust to ashes. He too supported himself upon the rail, and his gaze fell below, to the bushes. Was it the moonlight, or were they, where they had been bare a few minutes before, now covered with great misty masses of lilacs?

The perfume of the flowers came up to him breath on breath: he could see them clearly now.... White lilacs! An overwhelming panic swept over him, a sudden dread of his surrounding, of the silken figure of the woman before him. He must get away. He pushed her roughly aside, swung back the screen door, and clattered through the room and down the stair. He fumbled for a moment with a bolted door, and then was outside, free. Without hesitancy he fled into the night, the secretive shadows. He ran until he literally fell, with bursting lungs and shaking, powerless knees, upon a bank.