“You think I am not in earnest, that I am impetuous, that I do not know you, do not know my own mind, perhaps. I did not need to know you as the social man knows women. At the first moment I spoke to you I knew what it had been that, ever since I first saw you, had filled me with a newness, a joy, a something that has no name because it underlies and embraces all things--love, love, the love of a soul for a soul, of a heart for a heart, of a man for the woman of all women for him. Jacqueline!” He bent to see her averted face, but she held up her hand, entreating. He seized it in his own. “That avalanche I spoke of the other night is started again. You did not stop it. You cannot stop it. If you do not hear me now, the moment will come at another time. It is the fulfillment of my being, to love you as you never dreamed of love, as no one else will ever love you, and to tell you so, over and over again, until it is music in your ears.” He was close to her. In the gathering twilight of the church her face seemed very white, and she was watching his lips with a species of enchantment. She did not see the ardor in his eyes that made them glow as with fire, but as he ceased speaking, her lashes quivered and fell. “I shall never give you up,” he whispered, his lips near her ear. “The bud comes no surer to the tree, the rose comes no surer from the bud, than my love will awaken love in you. Is it not so?” The swift color darkened her face to the heavy shadow about her brow, and she pressed her hand against his breast resistingly. But at the touch he took her in his arms. “Jacqueline,” he cried, “tell me that you love me.” She lay very still, suddenly finding it good to be thus vanquished. “Jacqueline,” he repeated, and bent his head to catch her words. “You are a tyrant, but I am afraid I do.” And then, his lips on hers, their world stood still. THE INCOMPATIBILITY _of the_ CATHERWOODS BY VIRGINIA NILES LEEDS [Illustration] When Katherine Corning married Dick Catherwood people predicted they would not live together five years, and they didn’t. The five years were up and so was the marriage. Dick was the most charming fellow in the world, when you were not married to him. As a companion for life he was intolerable. He was far handsomer than a Greek god, but when you find your Greek god full of mundane ungodliness you cannot help regretting that so much charm should be wasted on merely outward appearance. Yet, in spite of her thorough understanding of his character, Katherine could not help going back sentimentally to the time she first met and loved the man from whom she was now separated. He had attracted her with a magnetism no other man had ever inspired. She _felt_ him looking at the back of her head before she had ever seen his face. It was at the opera, and later, when Mrs. Wesley introduced him, she knew instinctively she had met her fate.