"Of me?"
"Yes: now are you triumphant?" She escaped.
"Will you sit down in a chair, you sprite, and let me kneel at your ladyship's feet?"
"No—yes—No, you too sit down." Then as Lawrence, enchained, relapsed into the deep easy chair by the fire, she came behind and leant over him, wreathing her arms over his shoulders. "There: now lie still: so: is that cosy for you? Now will you go to sleep?"
"Circe . . ."
"You don't feel as though you were going to sleep."
"Mon Dieu!" Lawrence murmured under his breath.
"Don't say that," her voice was so soft that it was like the voice of his own heart speaking to him, "it isn't a proper reply to make when a lady says she loves you."
"Oh! provided that you do love me—!"
She took his temples between her fingertips and again her enchanting caress brushed his lips. Lawrence lay helpless. It was like receiving the caresses of a fairy: a delight and a torment, a serenity and a flame. "I love you. I will marry you. I shall be a most exacting wife, 'December when I wed.' Very soon you'll wish you had never set eyes on me. You'll have to marry Val too and all the family." Her long lashes were fluttering against his cheek. "As you're thirty-six and I'm only nineteen, you'll have to be very docile or I shall tell you you're ungenerous."