Sitting composedly on the ugly red velvet sofa, with my hands folded and my feet crossed, I attempted to define that wonderful feeling. “It feels,” I said, “as if sparks of fire and ice crystals ran riot in my veins with my blood; as if a thousand pin-points pierced my flesh, and every other point a point of pleasure, and every other point a point of pain; as if my heart were laid to rest in a bed of velvet and cotton-wool but kept awake by sweet violin arias; as if milk and honey and the blossoms of the cherry flowed into my stomach and then vanished utterly; as if strange, beautiful worlds lay spread out before my eyes, alternately in dazzling light and complete darkness with chaotic rapidity; as if orris-root were sprinkled in the folds of my brain; as if sprigs of dripping-wet sweet-fern were stuck inside my hot linen collar; as if--well, you know,” I ended suddenly. “Very good,” said the Devil. “You are in love. And you say you are in love with me.” “Oh, with you!” I exclaimed with suppressed violence. The effort to suppress this violence cost me pounds of nerve-power. But I kept my hands still quietly folded and my feet crossed, and it was a triumph of self-control. “I want you to marry me,” I added despairingly. “And you think,” he inquired, “that apart from the opinion of the wise world, it would be a suitable marriage?” “A suitable marriage!” I exclaimed. “I hate a suitable marriage! No, it would not be suitable. It would be Bohemian, outlandish, adorable!” The Devil smiled. This time the smile was for me. And, oh, the long, old, overpowering enchantment of the smile of steel-gray eyes!--the steel-gray eyes of the Devil! It is one of those things that one remembers. “You are a beautifully frank, little feminine creature,” he said. “Frankness is in these days a lost art.” “Yes, I am beautifully frank,” I replied. “Out of countless millions of the Devil’s anointed I am one to acknowledge myself.” “But withal you are not true,” said the man-devil. “I am a liar,” I answered. “You are a liar, surely,” he said, “but you stay with your lies. To stay with anything is Truth.” “It is so,” I replied. “Nevertheless I am false as woman can be.” “But you know what you want.” “Oh, yes,” I said, “I know what I want. I want you to marry me.” “And why?” “Because I love you.” “That seems an excellent reason, certainly,” said the Devil. “I want to be happy for once in my life,” I said. “I have never been happy. And if I could be happy once for one gold day, I should be satisfied, and I should have that to remember in the long years.” “And you are a strangely pathetic little animal,” said the Devil. “I am pathetic,” I said. I clasped my hands very tightly. “I know that I am pathetic: and for this reason I am the most terribly pathetic of all in the world.”