“I adore you for--for everything.” She had evaded the purpose of her speech. He wondered, with the exasperation of his over-wrought physical suspense, if she did. His ravishment had suffered a sharp natural decline reflected in a mental gloom. For the moment he desired nothing, valued nothing. And, in this mood, he became talkative; he poured a storm of pessimistic observation over Savina; and she listened with a rapt, transported, attention. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, in a silence coincident with dusk. The room slowly lost its sombre color and the sense of the confining walls; it became grey and apparently limitless; as monotonous, Lee Randon thought, as life. He was disturbed by a new feeling: that perversely, trivially, he had spoiled what should have been a priceless afternoon. It would never come back; what a fool he had been to waste in aimless talk any of the few hours which together they owned. He whispered this to Savina, in his arms; but she would permit no criticism of him. It was time, she discovered, for them to dress for their party: “I don't want you to go. Why can't you be with me? But then, the servants! Lee, I am going to die when you leave. Tell me, how can I live, what am I to do, without you?” Since no satisfactory reply to that was possible, he stopped her troubled voice with a kiss. It was remarkable how many they had exchanged. He had the feeling, the hope, that, with nothing irrevocable consummated, their parting would be easier; but he began to lose that comfortable assurance. Again in his room, in the heavy choking folds of velvet draperies, he was grave; the mere excitation of the night before had gone. What was this, he asked himself, that he had got into? What had Cytherea to do with it? Ungallantly the majority of his thoughts were engaged with the possibility, the absolute necessity, of escape. By God, he must get out of it, or rather, get it out of him! But it wasn't too late; he could even finish the day, this delight, with safety. Savina would recover--she had already thanked him for his self-control.