Succeeding Dexter's first exhilaration came restlessness and dissatisfaction. The helpless ecstasy of losing hinself in her was opiate rather than tonic. It was fortunate for his work during the winter that those moments of ecstasy came infrequently. Early in their acquaintance it had seemed for a while that there was a deep and spontaneous mutual attraction-that first August, for example-three days of long evenings on her dusky veranda of strange wan kisses through the late afternoon, in shadowy alcoves or behind the protecting trellises of the garden arbors, of morning when she was fresh as a dream and almost shy at meeting him in the clarity of the rising day.