“One thing might happen that would fill the months with glory, and inaugurate our project in the radiance of the rising sun. Yet not for the scheme's sake, but for our lives' sake--for the sake of the expansion and development of all that is yearning within us to find utterance--Ella--Will you come with me?” She sat, looking straight before her, her lips apart, her body slightly swaying. Words would not come. She vaguely wished that something could happen to rid her of his presence, that he could disappear, there and then, once for all, out of her life. Yet she felt it impossible to dismiss him. Some mysterious feminine chord had been struck whose echoes proclaimed his right to stand over her and speak to her thus. “What are you saying?” she murmured, with an almost piteous emphasis on the last word. “I am telling you that I love you, Ella, that my life is bound up in you, that I need you for the accomplishment of my manhood. And I am asking you to come with me to this sweet new land, to be my helper and my star. Say that you will come with me.” “Give me time,” she breathed. “I can't say--I have been living in a whirl so long. I don't know what I am or think or feel. I will give you an answer some day--soon--not now.” “I will wait devotedly for your answer,” said Roderick, in his courtliest manner, and moved a pace or two from her chair. Ella looked up at him, almost grateful for his assurance. “We will fix no period,” she said. “To have to give such a reply by a definite date--” “I do not ask it,” said Roderick, quietly, though his heart was beating fast at the certainty of victory. “You have given me the food of hope, whereon I can live meanwhile.” “Could you not bear suspense?” she asked. “I might not answer as you would like.” “I could bear anything for your sake,” said he. Then, after a pause, “And now goodbye. I must have solitude to dream over my happiness.” She gave him her hand; he bent over it and kissed it, and she felt his lips hot against her skin. It gave her a little shudder of repugnance, and the feeling remained after he had gone. And yet his fascination was strong upon her. He dominated her will as no man had done before. She was conscious that he had the rare power to penetrate to the core of her woman's weaknesses, to understand her as a botanist understands a plant, and the rarer power to touch the fibres delicately, so that it became a pleasure to be weak. Again, her somewhat exaggerated conception of his wide spiritual and intellectual horizon moved her emotional temperament to wondering respect, and she thought gratefully of the expansion of her own under his influence. With the incomplete vision wherewith the wisest of women must of necessity regard a man, she saw him strong and masterful, clearing his way resolutely to a definite end. She felt that he brought this air of mastery into his love; and he had created a need of him within her.