ed innocent enough to have
been meant for the golden street. Her eyes looked up into his with that
confiding lure that thrills and thrills again.
Her voice dropped softer, and she turned half away and gazed pensively
into the fire on the hearth. "I wouldn't let them talk to me about it.
It seemed so awful. And you were so strong and great."
"It was nothing!" He did not want to talk about the fire. There was
something incongruous, almost unholy, in having it discussed here. It
jangled on his nerves. For there in front of him in the fireplace burned
a mimic pit like the one into which the martyr Steve had fallen; and
there before him on the couch sat the girl! What was there so familiar
about her? Ah! now he knew. The Scarlet Woman! Her gown was an exact
reproduction of the one the great actress had worn on the stage that
night. He was conscious of wishing to sit beside her on that couch and
revel in the ravishing color of her. What was there about this room
that made all his pulses beat?
Playfully, skilfully, she led him on. They talked of the dances and
games, little gossip of the university, with now and then a telling
personality, and a sweep of long lashes over pearly cheeks, or a lifting
of great, innocent eyes of admiration to his face.
She offered wine in delicate gold-incrusted ruby glasses, but Courtland
did not drink. He scarcely noticed her veiled annoyance at his refusal.
He was drinking in the wine of her presence. She suggested that he
smoke, and would not have hesitated to join him, perhaps, but he told
her he was in training, and she cooed softly of his wonderful strength
of character in resisting.
By this time he was in the coveted seat beside her on the couch, and the
fire burned low and red. They had ceased to talk of games and dances.
They were talking of each other, those intimate nothings that mean a
breaking down of distance and a rapidly growing familiarity.
The young man was aware of the fascination of the small figure in her
crimson robings, sitt
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John Addington Symonds (October 5, 1840 - April 19, 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. He was an early advocate of the validity of male love which included for him pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, and which he would refer to as lamour de limpossible.