The man, still panting from conflicting passions, acted strangely and foolishly, as men do at crucial moments. He smoothed his hair, arranged his tie, and pulled down his waistcoat, not looking at her but into a near mirror. Yet he saw her astonished face at second hand, and smiled grimly. "I can be a brute," said he, ominously quiet; "but you haven't seen me at my worst yet." "Good heavens!" This was undoubtedly a man--_the_ man--the dominating male, the genuine lord of creation, whose animal honesty can rend the cobweb entanglements of the female sex, and does rend them, when the bandage of love inopportunely slips. Defiance would not lure him again to his proper position at her feet; and she was half afraid of the might her trickiness had evoked. But in woman's weakness lies woman's strength, and Delilah pulled down the corners of her mouth to subjugate Samson. "My poor wrists!" she murmured. Askew wheeled from the mirror, shied, and winced; but his mouth and eyebrows were still three straight lines. "My poor wrists!" reiterated the temptress, moving towards her pre-historic man; "see--you have bruised them." He could see that he had; they were under his eyes, under his very nose, but he threw aside his head, with the modern equivalent of a word which a cave-man might have used in some such plight. Adam was weakened into aggressive firmness. Eve offered a more tempting apple. "If you really loved me"--tears emphasised the murmur. "Leah--darling!" He was again in the toils, and kissing the bruised skin madly, with feverish lips. "How could I be so cruel?" he mumbled, and slipped to her victorious feet. "Oh! oh! oh!" in three distinct keys. "Forgive." "If you will promise not to leave me," she whispered tenderly. "Never! never! never! never!" a kiss on alternate hands for each word. Circe's magic having evoked the brute, she knew thoroughly the sort of animal she had to deal with. Considering that she had no feeling of love, or even pity, to create fervour, Leah acted admirably. Cooing like a mother over her babe, and with a seraphic look, she bent above the tame animal, less to caress him than to make sure that the halter was round his neck. "You foolish, hot-headed boy! Do get up and talk sensibly!" The subjugated obeyed meekly, all the fire out of his veins, and sat like a whipped schoolboy in a distant chair, which she indicated with regal indignation. "For," said Leah, as if she were announcing an entirely new fact, "I am a married woman"; and she slipped behind the tea-table to prevent further demonstrations. "As if I didn't know," sighed Askew, disconsolately. "Then why did you behave so badly, you wicked boy?" "Because jewellers' windows are tempting." "Jewellers' windows?" "You look into them, and see pretty things you can't buy. Naturally, a fellow wants to smash the glass and----"