She adored the reckless threading flight of taxi-cabs through the streets, plunging into sudden openings, grinding to hairbreadth stops, rounding abrupt corners, tossed and buffeted, skimming into new perils. It was all something of herself, her reckless, daring, danger-loving self. Then, there was the telephone, which called to her twenty times a day: she never went to it without a little thrill of anticipation. She adored it as the gambler the rolling ball, this mysterious instrument which, with its startling jangle, could change the complexion of a dull and hopeless day and send her swiftly out on some new dare, throbbing with excitement. She appreciated it, too, for its mocking moments of conversation, engagements to take or to refuse, laughing excuses or new traps to set; but it was especially this quality of the unexpected she adored, the possibility at the last moment, after a day of calculated planning, to throw everything to the winds, to go rushing off on the hazards of the unexpected. During this period her passion for the opera increased: _Tristan and Isolde_, _Bohême_, _Tosca_, _Manon_--she never let a performance of these favorites pass unattended if she could manage it, hanging breathless on the passionate poignant tragedies at the end, soothed and satisfied, convinced, resolved, saying: "Ah, yes! That is what love is--what it must mean!" At such times, if she happened to be with Massingale, she would close her eyes, serenely content, her fingers fastened over his hand, clinging, as if her arms were wrapped about him. She was certain now that this was the best--if only she could bring him to the height she wished, if she could only make him rise above the commonplace and know the tragic ecstasy. She knew now that he loved her; would it be as she wished, great enough to justify the sacrifice she would willingly make to grasp the dream? Perhaps, unconsciously, at the bottom it was necessary for her to know of what he was capable before she could decide what she herself would do. To force him to this was now her one idea; she was fiercely resolved that what had started as a casual flirtation should redeem itself in a heroic flame.