You and I have never played a game of poker yet that I've not won every cent of money you had." "Yes; and what are you doing with it all ?" "Spending it," she returned loftily; "gloves and veils and lace pins--all kinds of things." But Condy knew the way she spoke that this was not true.
For the next hour or so he read to her from "The Seven Seas," while the afternoon passed, the wind stirring the chaparral and blackberry bushes in the hollows of the huge, bare hills, the surf rolling and grumbling on the beach below, the sea-birds wheeling overhead.

Blix listened intently, but Condy could not have told of what he was reading.

Living was better than reading, life was better than literature, and his new-found love for her was poetry enough for him.

He read so that he might not talk to her or look at her, for it seemed to him at times as though some second self in him would speak and betray him in spite of his best efforts.

Never before in all his life had he been so happy; never before had he been so troubled.