"I--I didn't mean it that way," he apologized. "I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her--the other.... You didn't," came from her slowly. He shook his head. "No," he replied. The Woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely. "And do you know why?" Again he shook his head. "Because you never loved her as you love me. A man is as rough sometimes to the woman he loves as at other times he is sweet." She plucked a scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast, dangling it in one white hand, lazily, sensuously. "You know well of men, don't you," Schuyler remarked, bitterly, "Well enough" she replied, lightly. "And that is why, when you said, 'Damn you, let me alone!' that I didn't say, 'Damn you!'" she struck him lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom, "and go." Then, with abrupt transition: "That and because I love you." He laughed, mirthlessly. "Because you love me!" he cried, his voice all scorn. "Because you love me! Does love then bring disgrace, and ruin, and dishonor upon the object of its lavishment? Does it? Does it?" She had sunk upon the floor at his feet. Her legs were drawn beneath her; she poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him. "Sometimes," she returned, evenly. "Even as it brings joy, and ecstasy and happiness untold.... And it does bring that," she purred, sibilantly. "Doesn't it, My Fool?" He leaned forward, drawing her to him. "You know it," he cried.... "You know it!" She saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone knew how to kindle.... It pleased her.... It pleased her also to blight it at her will. She laughed. She knew as well how to blight as how to kindle. She knew also how to twist a soul in torment; and how to swirl it to the false heaven of unreal joys. For she, of the Unknown, knew much-- more, perhaps, than of the known. She said, laughing janglingly: "But did you ever think, My Fool, that there are different loves?" He sunk back into his chair. The eyes again were leaden. His head bent. She leaned forward, taking from a vase on the table a nodding white blossom. "One love," she went on, "is like the white rose--pallid, pale, wistful, weak--a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it-- that wearies the eye and chills the soul.... The other love is like the red rose--rich, rare, glowing, glorious--that thrills the heart with the joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins until the very soul cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance--a pulsing, throbbing love of body and soul and heart and head, that rushes upon one like a storm at sea, dashing one hither and thither, impotent in its tearing, tossing grip.... That is our love--the Red Love--and it is sweet, is it not, My Fool?" She bent over him, watching the light again leap to the heavy eyes as he answered: