“Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery that her thrifty dressmaking went with a considerable feminine care for dress--the one feminine thing that had never failed her solitary self-respect. In consequence Smith pestered her with a theory (which he really seemed to take seriously) that ladies might combine economy with magnificence if they would draw light chalk patterns on a plain dress and then dust them off again. He set up "Smith's Lightning Dressmaking Company," with two screens, a cardboard placard, and box of bright soft crayons; and Miss Diana actually threw him an abandoned black overall or working dress on which to exercise the talents of a modiste. He promptly produced for her a garment aflame with red and gold sunflowers; she held it up an instant to her shoulders, and looked like an empress. And Arthur Inglewood, some hours afterwards cleaning his bicycle (with his usual air of being inextricably hidden in it), glanced up; and his hot face grew hotter, for Diana stood laughing for one flash in the doorway, and her dark robe was rich with the green and purple of great decorative peacocks, like a secret garden in the "Arabian Nights." A pang too swift to be named pain or pleasure went through his heart like an old-world rapier. He remembered how pretty he thought her years ago, when he was ready to fall in love with anybody; but it was like remembering a worship of some Babylonian princess in some previous existence. At his next glimpse of her (and he caught himself awaiting it) the purple and green chalk was dusted off, and she went by quickly in her working clothes.”

“Piney woke up wearing a big grin on his face. He couldn’t remember when he’d slept so well. He pulled the pillow next to him up over his face. He could smell her hair on it.“Jesse,” he murmured to himself. He liked her. He really liked her. And he loved, loved, loved doing her.Being inside her. She was so hot. She was so tight. She was…Piney stopped himself in midthought and rolled out of bed. His mind was headed where his body could not go.”

“He felt as if he hadn't slept because he spent all night wandering through the world looking for a maiden who bore his heart in her womb. His heart grew in her like a child. He was pregnant with his heart for a long time, for a year, for ten years, for a generation, for a hundred and two years. His heart grew bigger and bigger in her, and she grew bigger and bigger to accomodate the growth of his heart in her womb. He never knew when she would give birth to his heart and he lost her and searched the world over and never found her. His father, the king, told him that the world in which he searched for he was his heart, and that she was the mother of all the world, and that his search was over when it began, but he didn't know it.”

“He looked down at himself and laughed softly. ‘‘My dark side dresses better than I do.’’ He stood upand reached for clothes folded neatly on a table to the side as he loosened the tie on his robe. He hesitated, smiled, and raised hiseyebrows. ‘‘If you don’t mind, Claire . . . ?’’‘‘Oh. Sorry.’’ Claire turned her back. She didn’t like turning her back on him, even with the cell door locked. He was betterbehaved when he knew she was watching. She focused on the faint, distorted image of his reflection on the TV screen as he shedthe dressing gown and began to pull on his clothing. She couldn’t see much, except that he was very pale all over. Once she wassure his pants were up, she glanced behind her. He had his back to her, and she couldn’t help but compare him with the only otherman she’d really studied half-naked. Shane was broad, strong, solid. Myrnin looked fragile, but his muscles moved like cablesunder that pale skin—far stronger than Shane’s, she knew.Myrnin turned as he buttoned his shirt. ‘‘It’s been a while since a pretty girl looked at me with such interest,’’ he said. She lookedaway, feeling the blush work its heat up through her neck and onto her cheeks. ‘‘It’s all right, Claire. I’m not offended.”

“Ramrod felt a great sadness building up, deep within. There were no words to express his feeling of loss. The sorrow rose up from the pit of his stomach and caught in his throat. He had a strangled ejaculation buried deep down in his soul. Yes, Ramrod missed his wife very, very much. He missed the warmth of her breasts pressed up against him in the night. He even missed her cold feet. And he especially missed her bedtime facial. Yes, it’s true—he missed her eyes, he missed her mouth. He had trouble remembering how she wore her hair the last time he saw her, and he missed that, too. It’s like, where Love was concerned, Ramrod’s aim wasn’t very good. Yes, life was becoming very, very hard on Ramrod. ”

“As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen such a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look as was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, and high forehead and the wide-set eyes.”