He took her familiarly by her dusky, well-rounded arm; she shook him off petulantly. "I've told you----" He held the arm more confidently. "You ain't in no hurry. We'll walk up a piece----" Her feet retarded, as he turned up the stubby grass-rugged path. He pulled her after him with a low chuckle of insolent arrogance. Her tones were more docile, soberly argumentative. "Why don't you go to your white girl? You told me you were going to get married----" "She kin wait." They were deep in the obscurity of the oak thicket now; the path was cherty, grassless. She walked easily in front of him, then stopped in the topmost shadow, as the murky panorama of the night city opened before them. She stood wrapped in the dusky wonder of a sky stained with echoes of furnace fire, a dun horizon broken with twinkling patterns of streets and avenues. Around her waist he coiled a determined arm; in her he saw the beauty that she found in the broken mystery below. "Let's sit down." Gathering her skirts close, she sat on the dry grass, shrinking slightly from his touch. He let her have her fill of the shining moment; but his hand continued its gentle stroking along her arm, her shoulders, the soft curve of her neck. A subtle riot shivered out of nowhere into her emotions, an agonizing quiver so sweet that it must be wicked. Her distressed face besought his, "Don't, don't, Jim----" He did not answer; nor did he stop. A wild pagan stir whipped her blood, giving the blasphemous counsel that she should throw herself into his arms. It was the proximity of the male calling to his mate; it was more--it was the answering tremor of the woman of a lower, darker race, the mountain wildness dominant in her blood, when chosen by the man of the higher, lighter strain. The stern Puritanism of her training fought against this. She must save herself whole for a man of her own color; she thought of the negro poet's magnificent lines about the black Mary, who was to bring forth the black Messiah to lead his brethren out of bondage.... "Gimme your lips, honey." She pulled back, trembling, from the dominant triumph in his voice. His arm swept tightly around her, she was dragged against him. Her weakness melted to nothing in the presence of this mighty outer and inner strength. Slowly she felt herself losing. Her prisoned hands struck out feebly against his face; yet even in her fighting she fancied that the man whose face was hidden in the night before her was not the repulsive, leering mine foreman, but the dim white knight of her hid dreamings. With startling suddenness she yielded to his command. His lips fastened to hers, clung there. She felt that the whole universe became a kiss; melted, eddied together into one point of mad moist contact. Her struggles to free her lips drew her closer to him. She was conscious of his hot hand pressing against her body, burning through the thin calico waist. Then she lost consciousness of bewildering details.