What would she have done if he had remained? Now the languor that had stolen treacherously over her senses was gone, dissipated by the presence of another human being. Her mind threw itself feverishly on the problem, encircling it, trying it from a hundred points of view. What did it mean? Was her liberty, her freedom of action suddenly jeopardized? And the thought of this overpowering new force made her violently react ... striving to escape its verity ... just as her body had whipped around in his arms when they had suddenly closed about her. What was it frightened her?... the man, or something awakened within her? She sat up in bed, her head in her palms, throbbingly awake. What would have happened if he had stayed?... But he had not stayed--and she had not allowed him to return. She said it to herself victoriously ... illogically evading an answer ... momentarily satisfied. And if he came again? Would there be a new danger? She sank wearily on her pillow. No ... of that she was sure ... never again would she be so vulnerable.... It had been the unknown--the thing she had not believed in--which had taken her by surprise ... unprepared. Then he had made the mistake of returning. Massingale, strong and unyielding, had had a fearfully attractive force over her will and her vanity, but the other ... the Massingale who had returned, was human, and therefore could be subjected. No!... she would never fear him again! Did she love him?... She did not know ... at least she insisted that it could not be so--not all at once--perhaps, later. But she knew this--that she longed to see him again, to have the dragging night end, to awaken to the morning and to hear his coming,... to go hurriedly with him out of the discordant city, somewhere, where it was peaceful and solitary,... somewhere where they could turn and look in each other's eyes and know what had happened. At other moments she said to herself with profound conviction that it must be love, that that was the way, the only way, that love could come, overpowering the reason, despite the reason, beating down all reason. Then if it were love? Would she submit, renounce all her defiantly proclaimed liberty? Characteristically, she did not answer. Instead, she projected herself into this submission, and her imagination, volatile as a dream, whisked her from one fancy to another. She imagined what it would be like to fill a feverish letter, each night after he had gone, with all the tender, passionate, jealous, or yearning fancies that he had left tumultuously stirring in her breast--a letter which she herself would carry hastily out into the night, running to the letter-box at the corner, that he might wake to a surprise. And each morning she, too, would awake to his call, his voice over the telephone. At other times, sentimentally urged, she visualized him as ill, sadly stricken, herself at his bedside.