In the girl’s healthy and flushed contempt, making of a sinister situation only a squalid commonplace, the boy’s formless fears--all the tragic perplexity faded, burned out in a wholesome rage. But into her grey eyes came the swift shadow of anxiety again and she took hold of him, impulsively, by both elbows. “What am I going to do with you!” she cried in tender exasperation. “Will you smooth out that scowl and mind your business, darling? I can manage my own affairs. I’ve never been afraid of anything--except to-day. My only fear in the world is that you’ll get into mischief----” “Well, do you think I’m going to sit still and let----” “Will you mind your adorable business, Barry? You worry me. You’re on my mind. I’ve got to marry you as soon as I can I realise _that_----” He caught her in his clasp, fiercely. “You _will_!” “I’ve got to----” “You promise?” “Good heavens, yes!” she looked up at him, laughing. Suddenly her eyes filled. She tore his arms away and took him to her breast in a fiercer, closer clasp. Then the long tension broke with her cry: “Barry--Barry,” she breathed brokenly, “you belong to me--you’re _my_ boy! You’re all I ever owned in all my life that really belonged to me.... I--I had a--a heifer”--she was laughing hysterically--“but I had to sell her--and _they_ kept the money....” She clung to him, strained him to her in an abandon of long-pent need, incoherent between convulsive tears and the sobbing laughter that shook her slender body: “You want me, you need me, don’t you, Barry? You’re lonely. No boy ever should be lonely. It is the wickedest thing in the world--that any child should ever be lonely for need of love.... You _are_ a child! Mine! You’re all I care about.... And I’m going to marry you because you want me to--because we both want to--Barry, my darling--my boy who belongs to me----” CHAPTER XXX Before she could inherit this boy who had willed himself to her, Eris had to do everything for herself and she knew it. For a day or two she abandoned herself utterly to Annan. Night alone separated them. Early morning saw them united. The hot, sunny July days they spent in the surf at Long Beach, or in motoring through Westchester. Evenings they dined together on some cool roof, or by the sea, and returned to whisper happy intimacies together until long into the morning hours. Every lovely self-revelation of this girl more utterly turned the boy’s head. Desire became absolute necessity. Necessity became dependence. He did not understand that. He supposed the dependence was hers--that, in the turbulent torrent of Life he was the rock to which she clung. It was well that he thought that. It was well that she let him think so. It always is best for a man. Once, during those heavenly days, he met Coltfoot walking with Rosalind Shore on Fifth Avenue.