"I know where they are in your ice box. I’ll find them——" "What nonsense! Wait!——" She had started already; but swiftly as her light feet sped he overtook her on the stairs; gathered her into his arms, all pink and breathing rapidly: "Steve—my darling!——" "I thought you might do this.... I wanted to see——" "What?" "Whether it could happen to me again—what I experienced with you——" There was a silence: her young lips melted against his; lingered; her arms tightened around his neck. And the next instant she had freed herself, hot-cheeked, disconcerted. "Oh, it, was—quite true——" she stammered, resting against the banisters with one hand pressed tightly over her heart. "My curiosity is satisfied.... _Please!_—Jim, dear—we ought to behave rationally—oughtn’t we?" But she did not resist when he framed her face between his hands; and she suffered his lips again, and again her slight response and the grey eyes vaguely regarding him shook his self-control. "Will you try to love me, Steve?" "I seem to be doing it." "Is it really love, Steve? Do you truly care for me?" "Oh, dear, yes!" she said, with a quick-drawn breath which ended in a quiet sigh, scarcely audible. Then a faintly humorous smile dawned in her eyes: "You’re changing, Jim. You always were very wonderful to me, but you also _were_ mortal. Now, you’re changing; you are putting on a glorious, iridescent immortality before my eyes. I’m quite bewildered—quite dazzled—and my mind isn’t very clear—especially when you kiss me——" "Are you making fun of me?" "No, I’m not. That’s the way with the gods when they start a love affair with a mortal girl. Sometimes she runs, but they always catch her or turn her into a tree or a waterfall or something they can acquire and fence in, and visit like a plot in a cemetery. And if she doesn’t run away, then she just falls into a silly trance with her Olympian lover, and somebody comes along and raises the dickens with them both.... And now I’d like to know what’s going to happen to me?" "You’re going to try to fall in love with me first." "Oh. And then?" "Marry me." "Oh. And what will old lady Civilization say? I told you somebody would raise the dickens!" "Who cares?" "I suppose I wouldn’t care if I loved you enough." "Will you try?" "Oh, dear." ... She freed herself gracefully, stepped back a stair lower, and leaned on the rail, considering. "Oh, dear," she repeated under her breath. "What a tangle! ... I don’t know why I’ve let myself—care for you—in your way. I ought to stop it. Could you stand it?" she added naïvely. And the reply in his eyes scared her. "Oh, this is serious!" she murmured. "We’ve gotten on much further than I realized.... I remember, when you began to make love to me, I thought it very sweet and boyish of you—to fall in love with your own sister. But I’ve begun to make love to you, now.... And I ought not to." "Because you are married?" he asked under his breath.