So engaged was I with my own thoughts I had not noticed that we had slowed up. Coincidentally the car came to a stop. The doctor rose to his feet and looked behind him.
"Anything wrong?" I questioned.
"No; I only wanted to make sure the coast was clear."
He knelt with one knee on the seat and pulled the robe about me from behind. With his free hand he raised my face close to his, and held me there.
"I'm going to have one kiss from those luscious lips—if it takes a leg," he said.
The doctor was a strong man. Will had often remarked that no one would suspect me of having so much strength. Yet I was a mere child in the doctor's hands. He pinioned my arms beneath the weight of his body. He kept his lips on mine until the strength oozed out of my finger-tips from sheer suffocation. When he raised his head it was only to look at me and breathing hard again to fasten himself upon me with a fiercer tremor which shook his whole frame.... Only once or twice in all our married life had Will kissed me like that. I had believed it an expression of purest love. I realized now that it connoted other emotions less pure.... "Baby! Baby!... Put your arms around my neck.... You haven't fainted, have you?" ... He lifted me to my feet. I could not repress a hysterical sob. "There—that's better! I didn't mean to be so rough, but I'm mad about you. You drive me crazy! Kiss me of your own free will...."
I succeeded in holding him back while I looked him in the eyes, struggling to express what my lips refused to say.... "O ... O...." I finally stammered. "Is it right?... Do you think it's right?..."
Wholly misconstruing my words, he strained me to him and kissed me more tenderly, endeavouring to soothe me. "Right? Little boy, who the devil cares whether it's right or not! It's nice, isn't it? Don't you love it?"
"My husband ... do you think it's right to him?..."
Something of the disgust I felt must have pierced him, for he released me with a change of expression.