His eyes betrayed him. Concern and worse leapt into hers. She thrust out a hand to stop him, but he bent forward swiftly and strongly. Urged by the spirit that laziness and the warm, still night had put into him, that had led him on in mischief and that now suddenly engulfed him—"Stars on your mouth!" he cried, and caught his arms about her to kiss her.
II
He felt her twist as she were made of vibrant steel and strong as steel. His lips missed hers, and scarcely brushed her face. He tried for her lips again, laughing while he tried, and pressed her to him and felt her twist and strain away with a strength that surprised him while he laughed.
"Only a kiss, Ima! Only a kiss!"
She was of steel, but he held her. She spoke, and the strangeness of her words made him release her. "Ah, ah, Percival!" she gasped. "How you despise me!"
He let her go and she sprang away and upright, as a bow stick released. He let her go, and stared at her where she stood panting fiercely, and stared in more surprise when, checking her sobbing breaths, she spoke again.
In their struggle her hair had loosened and it fell, half-bound, in a heavy cascade upon one shoulder and down her breast. The starlight gleamed on it and on her dark face framed against it. She had a wild look, as if her mild beauty had suddenly gone gipsy; her sobbing voice had a wild tone, and he noticed the drop back to the "thee" long absent from her speech: "Ah, this to happen!" she cried. "This! Ah, what a thing I must be to thee!"
The strangeness and the violence of her distress astonished him. What had he done? Tried for a kiss? In the name of all the kisses snatched from pretty girls—! "Why, Ima?" was all he could say. "Ima?"
She dropped to the ground with a collapsed action as though, oppressed as she was, standing were insupportable. She covered her face with her hands, ceased her sobbing breaths; but he saw her trembling in all her frame.
Rising, he went to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and, at the convulsive movements he felt, made deeper the contrition for his careless act that her distress now caused him. "Ima, what have I done? Only tried to kiss you in fun. A sudden, silly thing—I don't know why—I never meant it—but only a kiss in fun."