He took her hand--it thrilled him as he had never been thrilled before. This impure man, who had made the winning of women a plaything, trembled with the fear of it as he took in his own the hand so pure that not even his touch could awaken sensuality in it. The odor of her beautiful hair floated up to him as he bent over. A wave of hot passion swept over him--for with him love was passion--and his reason, for a moment, was swept from its seat. Then almost beside himself for love of this woman, so different from any he had ever known, he opened his arms to fold her in one overpowering, conquering embrace. It was but a second and more a habit than thought--he who had never before hesitated to do it. She stepped back and the hot blood mounted to her cheek. Her eyes shone like outraged stars, dreaming earthward on a sleeping past, unwarningly obscured by a passing cloud, and then flashing out into the night, more brightly from the contrast. She did not speak and he crunched under his feet, purposely, the turf he was standing on, and so carrying out, naturally, the gesture of clasping the air, in establishing his balance--as if it was an accident. She let him believe she thought it was, and secured relief from the incident. "Alice--Alice!" he exclaimed. "I love you--love you--I must have you in my life! Can you not wear this now? See!" He tried to place it on her finger. He held the small beautiful hand in his own. Then it suddenly withdrew itself and left him holding his ring and looking wonderingly at her. She had thrown back her head, and, half turned, was looking toward the crepe-myrtle tree from which the faint odor came. "You had better go, Richard," was all she said. "I'll come for my answer--soon?" he asked. She was silent. "Soon?" he repeated as he rose in the stirrup--"soon--and to claim you always, Alice." He rode off and left her standing with her head still thrown back, her thoughtful face drinking in the odor of the crepe-myrtle. Travis did not understand, for no crepe-myrtle had ever come into his life. It could not come. With him all life had been a passion flower, with the rank, strong odor of the sensuous, wild honeysuckle, which must climb ever upon something else, in order to open and throw off the rank, brazen perfume from its yellow and streaked and variegated blossoms. And how common and vulgar and all-surfeiting it is, loading the air around it with its sickening imitation of sweetness, so that even the bees stagger as they pass through it and disdain to stop and shovel, for the mere asking, its musky and illicit honey. But, O mystic odor of the crepe-myrtle--O love which never dies--how differently it grows and lives and blooms!