Things had in no way persuaded her. They were not vital enough for her proposition. They had no meaning now--no more than proper parlor furniture for a castaway on a desert island. Then this was herself, a creature too much concerned with the primal harmonies of life to be impressed by the modulations her decade set upon them. This was that self which she had obscurely cherished as no more real than a fairy; but at Kerr's acclamation it had proclaimed itself more real than flesh and blood, and Kerr himself the most real thing in all her life. Then what was Harry? The bland implacable pronouncement of Shima had summoned him up to stand beside Kerr more clearly than her own eyes could have shown him. Surely she was giving to Kerr what belonged to Harry, or else she had already given to Harry what ought to have been Kerr's. That was her last conclusion. It was horrible, it was hopeless, but it was not untrue. It had crept upon her so softly that it had taken her unawares. She was appalled at the unreason of passion. Unsought by him, unclaimed, in every common sense a stranger to him--how could she belong to him? And yet of that she was sure by the way he had unveiled her the first night, by the way he had quickened her dreaming into life. As many times as she had fancied what love was like she had never dreamed it could be like this. It was mockery that she could be concerned for one who only wanted of her--plunder. Yet it was so. She was as tremblingly concerned for his fate as if she owned his whole devotion; and his fate at this moment, she was convinced, was in Harry's hands. Kerr, with his brilliant initiative, might carry him off, but Kerr was still the quarry. For had not Harry, from the very beginning, known something about him? Hadn't he at first denied hav
