"No!" said Varia, quickly, and struggled slightly to sit up.
"Yes—that is in the game!" said Marius, and would not let her go. "Does it come hard at first, my sweet? Never mind—soon you will like it better. Besides, I have told you that it is part of the game. So—rest quiet, and I will show you how else it goes."
In her eyes he read a struggle to recall something gone before and all but forgotten; a mental groping, painful in its intensity. She ceased her resistance, and he drew her closer and kissed her many times, with a growing passion which surprised himself. Her breath came quicker, but in her eyes was only the dumb striving after things forgotten, with no fear at all nor anger with him. His lips strayed where they would; in her strange absorption she seemed scarcely conscious of him.
"Truly I did well to call thee strange!" Marius said low in her ear. "Did one not know the facts of the case he might well count thee as good a player as himself."
Varia wrenched her hands from his and sat up. So swift was her motion that he had let her go before he knew it. She put her hands to her temples.
"But I have played this game before!" she cried, unheeding him. "I know now—oh, I know now! Thou wilt tell me that I am beautiful, and that thou lovest me, and thou wilt say that all is not well with thee for the pain thou hast. And I will stroke thy head to ease the pain, as sometimes my lord father will have me do. That is how the game goes. And Marcus comes and tries to play as he came before; he was the third, as thou hast told, who wished that he had not. But it should be in the garden; it was in the garden before!"
"Now what is this raving?" Marius exclaimed, wholly uncomprehending. He tried to take her again, but she slid off the couch and escaped him. He pursued and caught her, but instead of the passive yielding he expected, he met resistance which was unlooked-for.
"No! I'll have no more!" she cried. "Let me go—I do not wish to play this game with thee! Always he stops when I bid him—thou must do the same. I do not like this thy way. He is not rough, but gentle, and I do not fear him. Oh, let me go!"
"Thou hast played this game before, then?" said Marius. "Be still, girl! I'll not hurt thee, but I will not let thee go. Is there more in this than I had fancied? Are thy words mere idle raving? By the gods, I think not! Answer me what questions I shall ask, and I'll let thee go, not sooner. I have a mind to know the truth of this!"
She stood still, half in tears, breathing fast, like a frightened child.