.

.

To every man came first the call of passion; then the love-hunger for a perfect mate.

The latter had come to him to-night as Diane stood in the doorway, a slender, vibrant flame of life keyed exquisitely for the finer, subtler things and hating everything else.
Still he drank, but the fires of hell were rising now in his eyes.
There was treachery in the bottle.

.