He came back and, without taking his seat, bent over her and intimately took her hand.
"Antoinette," he said, lifting her gently.
She looked up, then arose--for he slowly drew her--breathless, the color gone, much of the capable practicality that was hers completely eliminated.

She felt limp, inert.

She pulled at her hand faintly, and then, lifting her eyes, was fixed by that hard, insatiable gaze of his.
Her head swam--her eyes were filled with a telltale confusion.
"Antoinette!" "Yes," she murmured.
"You love me, don't you ?" She tried to pull herself together, to inject some of her native rigidity of soul into her air--that rigidity which she always imagined would never desert her--but it was gone.

There came instead to her a picture of the far Blue Island Avenue neighborhood from which she emanated--its low brown cottages, and then this smart, hard office and this strong man.

He came out of such a marvelous world, apparently.