"Money," he muttered, "money! when all that one hungers for is a little love. Oh, you good women, cold and calculating and condescending to us poor, hot-headed, hot-blooded sinners, who only want a hand to help us out of the mud--a hand you won't reach out ever so little for fear of tumbling in yourselves." "How unjust you are, Ivor," she cried, with tears in her voice and eyes, "you who clung to the mud you speak of, and refused to be helped out of it!" "Help me now," he murmured. "Reach out a hand now--now that I'm sinking--deeper and deeper. I'm a beast, and a selfish beast at that. But marry me; it's my only chance. I haven't a penny in the world, and I've no prospects. I'm done for--broken, good for nothing--but--marry me--pick me out of the gutter." "Ivor! Are you mad?" "Yes, and drunk too--raving mad and blind drunk," he shouted savagely. "I was always in love with you," he faltered, "even when you were a little mite of a thing in short frocks and long hair, when you used to bowl for me and bat for me and field for me, and I used to swing you in the swing in the big horse-chestnut----" He dropped his face in his hands with a heavy sigh, his arms propped on his knees, and his eyes bent frowningly on the gravel. She was trembling now, but controlled her voice too well. "And yet," she said, "I have no power with you--you will do nothing for me--you want me to go on batting and bowling and fielding for you in the perpetual, desultory cricket you make of life." "And you," he retorted--"you want me to go on swinging you everlastingly under the humdrum, goody-goody chestnut you make of life." "And this," said Agatha bitterly, "is love--a man's love!" "Oh, I'll swing you," he returned savagely, "if you'll only have me--swing you for all I'm worth, if you'll only love me--love me, love me, Agatha--backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, as long as you like, till my arms crack and drop off. That's love--a man's love." She could not speak for the hot rush of sobs rising in her throat. She shut her hands tight, choked back the sobs, and looked straight before her at the broad blue sea glowing deeply in the sun. The dolphin-like hill-spur of Bordighera, all dreamy blue, with violet tints, paled while she looked and slipped suddenly under a veil of grey mist, while a huge black cloud, rising rapidly behind it, threw its shadow over the sea, changing peacock-blue and turquoise into deepest indigo. The chill of it struck into her. She drew in her breath and swallowed down her tears, and spoke in a low, even voice. "Ivor," she said, "will you do this for me--only this one thing--the thing I have asked you so often before?" "I'll do anything, everything; but I can't turn Methody, if you mean that--even for you----" "Will you, once for all--I ask it for the last time--for my sake, give up gambling in every form--cards, betting----"