"Please, don't!"
"But why, dearest? I love you."
She paused and he looked at her, aloof arguments in his eyes as if he were pleading not in his own behalf but in behalf of—a somebody else, a client. His knees were trembling under her weight. The crusade had disappeared. A memory of it lingered but in an amusing way. He caught a glimpse of the headlines on his desk and grinned. There was something maliciously unreal about life that one could enjoy.
Suddenly he felt her soften. Her lips brushed against his ear and her arm tightened convulsively around him.
"Please no," she murmured.
Her alarm delighted him. It was a final barrier, this alarm. It enabled him to enjoy the new conquest without having to be logical, without having to go on. Her alarm now was a barrier to be played with for a moment and then utilized. He would stop in a moment but now he could play with her fear, as if he were intent upon overcoming it.
"Please," she whispered, "don't ... it's no use."
The final words irritated him. No use! He felt offended, as if he had been trickily defeated in an argument. What was no use? What did she mean?
"George, please, listen to me. Oh please...."
That was better. But it had come just in time. He could retreat now with honor. For an instant a panic had filled him. Impossible to retreat on the explanation "it's no use." Because—well, because the words were a challenge, not an attack. But now it was easy. He stiffened in his chair. Ruth slipped from his lap and stood up, flushed. She straightened her hair and looked away. Basine felt annoyed with her. She had almost taken him by surprise. She had almost surrendered when the tactics of the game called for her to protest and thus cover his retreat by making it the result of her protests. And not of his—well, of his determination not to forget his position.