We had another mood when we came to my rooms. I perceived suddenly what there was in him more than I had known. It was in his manner that he had commanded men. I was pierced through with a sense of his virility, the quality that goes to make a male. I was glad of an excuse to put away my hat and wrap, to escape for a moment from the effect he produced on me ... from inordinate pride in him that he could so produce it. The room was full of the tumult we created for one another. "Will you sit here?" I said at last. I believe I pushed a chair toward him. "No, you." He must have turned it back toward me, otherwise I do not know how I came to be so near him. "You know," I said, ... "I never got your letter." "I guessed as much when it came back to me. I should have come to you the next day, but I quarrelled with my uncle. I walked all the way to the railway station before I remembered. But what had I to offer you?" "It was so long ago ..." "No, no, yesterday." His arms were around me. "Olivia ... yesterday and to-day!" I think I moved a little to be the more completely engulfed by him, to lay against his the ache of my empty breast; all these years I had not known how empty. We kissed at last and Joy came upon us. We loved; we kissed again between laughter. I remember little snatches of explanation in the intervals of kissing. "All this time, Helmeth, I have wanted you so." "I was on my way to you. All last winter in Alaska ... in the long night, Olivia. I should have come soon." "Oh," I cried, "I have been drawn across the sea to you. All the way I felt you calling!" "We had to meet again; had to!" After a time I insisted that he should sit down. "You haven't had any tea." I tried to get control of myself. I was crossing the room to ring when he swept me up again. "Look here, Olivia, I don't want any tea. I want you. God!" he said, "do you know how I want you?" All at once I was crying on his breast. "Oh, Helmeth, Helmeth, do you know you have only seen me twice in your life." "And both times," he insisted, "I've wanted to marry you." * * * * * It was two or three days before we spoke of marriage again. I believe I scarcely thought of it; we had all the past to account for, and the present. We had moments of strangeness, and then we would kiss, and all the years would seem to each of us as full of the other as the very hour. "Where were you, Helmeth, the second summer after we met?" I had told him of my visit to Chicago and the dream of him I had had there. "Out in Arizona, carrying a surveyor's chain, dreaming of _you_! Often when the moonlight was all over that country like a lake, I would walk and walk. I had long talks with you; they were the only improving conversation I had."