want her!" He could not bear the idea of Alayne's being drawn again into Jalna, as into a whirlpool in which she would be sucked under.
"Let him be," said his uncle. "Let him have time to think."
The three sat with their eyes on the hunched-up figure on the bed. In and out, through the mazes of their thoughts, the shape of Alayne moved, in a kind of mystic dance. The roar of traffic from below rose as a wall around them.
At last Eden rolled over and faced them. "I give you my word," he said, "that unless Alayne comes to help me get well, I shall die." His eyes were challenging, his mouth feverish.
Finch said over and over again to himself: "It's a shame—a shame to ask her."
"You are the one to ask her," said Ernest to Renny. "You must see her at once."
"How soon can he travel?"
"In a few days."
"I think you are the one to ask her. You've been talking to her."
"No—no. It must be you, Renny."
"I will bring her here, and he shall ask her himself."
"I am afraid it will upset him."
"I'll prepare her, but he must do the asking."
"Very well," said Eden. "Bring her here to see me. She can't refuse that."
Renny's feelings, as he stood waiting for Alayne to answer her door, were a strange mixture. He had a disheartened, hangdog feeling at being forced, through his solicitude for Eden, to come on such an errand. He had scarcely slept for two nights. In a city he was miserable as a wild animal trapped. Yet stirring all through him was a ruthless exhilaration at the thought of once more becoming a moving force in Alayne's life, in tearing her from her security and exposing her to the tyranny of passions and desires which she had thought to set aside.
As she stood before him, his thought was that she was
