"Aren't you afraid to say such things to me?" he demanded thickly. "Aren't you afraid...?"
"No," said Belinda. But just for a second she was afraid. There had been such a gleam of dementia in his eyes.
"Yes, you are afraid," he said, still holding her fast. "Little devil ... you are afraid.... And you need be ... you need be...." He laughed cruelly. "If I were an Oriental," he went on, "I'd cut off your lips for having let another man touch them...." His face suffused suddenly. He bent it down over hers. "Give them to me all the same...." he muttered. "Give me your lips, Linda. They're mine...."
For answer, she pressed them inward until they were only a thin mark in her face. Her eyes glittered up at him, defiant, rebellious, fiercely mocking.
The passion ebbed gradually from his own face. As he still held her, and she still continued to keep her full lips turned inward, he broke into a helpless, unwilling laugh. "Of all the little brutes...." he muttered unsteadily. At last he let her go. She backed away from him, then her lips curled free again, redder for their imprisonment. She smiled with impish delight at the success of her simple device.
"And yet women say they've been kissed against their wills!" she gurgled gleefully. "We are liars ... we women, Morry, dear!"
Something in her tone gave him a queer hope. He went up to her again. He said in a voice that trembled a little:
"Have you lied to me, Linda?... Was it a lie when you told me that beast had kissed you?... Had kissed your mouth?"
Belinda certainly had inspirations. She looked at him with her most melting yet most wayward look. Her dimples flickered.
"Well ... I guess he didn't enjoy the sort of kisses he did get," she murmured.