"I know it! I know it!" he replied. "You will make some man happier than ever man was before." His infatuation did not blind him to the fact that she cared nothing about him, looked on him in the most unpersonal way. But that knowledge seemed only to inflame him the more, to lash him on to the folly of an ill-timed declaration. "I have felt how much you will give--how much you will love--I've felt it from the second time I saw you--perhaps from the first. I've never seen any woman who interested me as you do--who drew me as you do--against my ambition--against my will. I--I----" He had been fighting against the words that would come in spite of him. He halted now because the food of emotion suffocated speech. He stood before her, ghastly pale and trembling. She did not draw back. She seemed compelled by his will, by the force of his passion, to stay where she was. But in her eyes was a fascinated terror--a fear of him--of the passion that dominated him, a passion like the devils that made men gash themselves and leap from precipices into the sea. To unaccustomed eyes the first sight of passion is always terrifying and is usually repellent. One must learn to adventure the big wave, the great hissing, towering billow that conceals behind its menace the wild rapture of infinite longing realized. "I have frightened you?" he said. "Yes," was her whispered reply. "But it is your dream come true." She shrank back--not in aversion, but gently. "No--it isn't my dream," she replied. "You don't realize it yet, but you will." She shook her head positively. "I couldn't ever think of you in that way." He did not need to ask why. She had already explained when they were talking of Tetlow. There was a finality in her tone that filled him with despair. It was his turn to look at her in terror. What power this slim delicate girl had over him! What a price she could exact if she but knew! Knew? Why, he had told her--was telling her in look and tone and gesture--was giving himself frankly into captivity--was prostrate, inviting her to trample. His only hope of escape lay in her inexperience--that she would not realize. In the insanities of passion, as in some other forms of dementia, there is always left a streak of reason--of that craft which leads us to try to get what we want as cheaply as possible. Men, all but beside themselves with love, will bargain over the terms, if they be of the bargaining kind by nature. Norman was not a haggler. But common prudence was telling him how unwise his conduct was, how he was inviting the defeat of his own purposes. He waved his hand impatiently. "We'll see, my dear," he said with a light good-humored laugh. "I mustn't forget that I came to see your father." She looked at him doubtfully. She did not understand--did not quite like--this abrupt change of mood. It suggested to her simplicity a lack of seriousness, of sincerity. "Do you really wish to see my father?" she inquired.