She reached up her mouth to be kissed, but he touched her forehead with his lips, and she went away as she came, rustling her silks luxuriously along the mosaic floor.
He followed her with his eyes till she disappeared, then sat down, supporting his forehead with one hand.
"Ah, what a creature she is," he murmured. "If one could only buy her in selling himself to perdition, what man would shrink from the price? But who can say that he possesses her? My secret! No, Ellen Mason! that is your chain!—the shackle that keeps you here! I will never break it—never!"
A noise at the door caused him to look up. She had come back, and stood smiling upon him.
"You defy me—you liken me to that woman in the Bible, and keep secrets from me—this is a good reason for amusing myself elsewhere. I will not do that any more. Keep your secret, and hoard your treasures. I will not trouble you concerning them. Only let us be friends. There will be no happiness for either of us without that."
The woman offered her kisses again, and this time he did not avoid her lips—still she could not feel that her victory was complete.
After she had gone, Nelson cast his eyes on the floor, and started with an exclamation of dismay. When his wife fell into her passion she had stood directly over the centre ornament in the massive floor, a secret spring had yielded to the stamp of her foot, the stone had whirled from its place, leaving an opening of some inches, circling half around the centre ornament like a crescent.
"Had the woman seen this?"
The thought made him wild; great drops started to his forehead, while he fell upon his knees, and strove to replace the stone. It shot back to its groove, completing the Mosaic pattern. When all was secure, he sat down and fell into thought. A feeling of insecurity seized upon him; would this woman wrest his secrets from him after all—not by her fascinations, but through craft and watchfulness?
No; he would make sure against that. The ornament might give way again, but it should tell no secrets.