"Because I no longer care for anything else but you!" he cried--"friends, career, reputation. Because I can't live without you, Dodo! Because nothing else in life is life but you! Because I've come to hate it all--the rest! Dodo, I love you! I can't be without you!" "At last!" she said mechanically, staring at him. She did not draw away, though his lips sought hers. She longed for that oblivion which had first come to her in his arms, that quieting of the senses that drew the day from before her eyes and closed her ears to all but the faintest, far-off murmurings. She did not resist, but eagerly awaited this masculine mastery that once had awakened all the slumbering passionate fires within her. She wanted to forget again, to be overwhelmed, balanced in his arms, a weak contented thing, leaping hungrily to his contact, delirious and on fire. But no such oblivion arrived. She felt herself poignantly awake, curiously, critically conscious of a hundred questions against her brain, wondering at him, at his frenzy--feeling none herself, nor knowing why. All at once from the other room the voice of Snyder startled them, singing raucously: "Who are you with to-night, to-night? Oh, who are you with to-night? Will you tell your wife in the morning Who you are with to-night?" He straightened up suddenly, recollecting himself. "Ah, no! Don't go!" she cried, as she had on that first night when they had been swept together. He seemed so strange to her now! She wanted to have time to know him, this new Massingale! "No, no!" he said hoarsely. "I don't dare--I can't--it's beyond me! Dodo, at seven o'clock can you be ready?" "Two hours only!" "Take only a valise. Let everything be new! Can you do it?" "Yes!" "I will go and arrange my affairs, make preparations and be back here at seven precisely. We'll dine, and then--the night express for the West, as you wished!" "Yes!" "I will telephone. You will come down. I will be at the corner, waiting, at seven!" "Yes!" He caught her again in his arms, lifting her off her feet, half mad with recklessness and impatience, and started toward the door. Suddenly he turned, came back, and catching her shoulders in his two hands, looked at her savagely. "What is it?" she said faintly. Could this be what she had made of Massingale? "I am throwing everything to the winds, Dodo!--giving up my whole life for you!" he said breathlessly. "You will come, Dodo?" "I will--I must!" she said in wonder. CHAPTER XXXII Massingale had come so tempestuously, had gone so like a roaring blast, that she had felt swept up and whirled about in a revolving, benumbing cycle. She followed him in a daze to the hall, leaning over the balusters, watching the slipping white of his hand descend and vanish. She crossed to the window, peering through the blurred dripping panes for a last sight of his skidding car. Then she returned, perceived the door left open, closed it and came incredulously back.