Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/195

 House, and if they can do without us, by all means let 'em."

"But they are in a cleft stick, aren't they? If you insist, they will simply have to climb down, and that's why it would be cruel to make them. Don't be too hard upon them—please!" A sudden change of voice, rich and surprising, held him like magic. "Somehow they don't quite seem to deserve it. They have their points. And they are really rather big and fine if you see them as I do."

"They are crass, conceited, narrow, ossified. They think the world was made for 'em, instead of thinking they were made for the world. It's time they had a lesson. And you and I have got to teach 'em." He took her wrists and drew her to him. "We've got to larn 'em to be toads—you and me."

"On these grounds you command me!" The flash of glorious eyes was a direct challenge.

"No, on these—you darling." And he took her in his arms and held her in a grip of iron.

III

"Please, please!"

Reluctantly he let her go—provisionally and on sufferance.

But there was something in her face that looked like fear. The observant lover saw it at once, and the invincible lover tried to dispel it.

"Why take it tragically?" he said. "It's a thing to laugh at, really."

She shook a solemn head. "We must think of them—you must at any rate. You are all they have, and you