"Don't, Amor, don't."
"Soft as little moths that in wet garden paths brush the cheeks with feathery wings."
"Release my hand, detestable Amor. I will sit here no longer to be tortured by your boorishness."
"But why will you repulse me? you love me? We are to be wed almost at once. Why were you willing to sit in this dark corner, unless for the charms of love?"
The Minuet was drawing to a close. Long since the musick had departed into wilder channels. This was now no courtly measure, but a barbarick medley of noise, fit for trumpets of India, cymbals of Ethiopia, and the hollow booming of drums that affright wrecked pirates in the green swamps of Madagascar.
Vernon stood up and drew Phyllida closer.
"By G——, child, you madden me with your prettiness. Come, I swear you shall kiss me before the end of the dance. You shall, by G—— you shall!"
Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and blushes in our first chapter, is scarcely recognizable now. She is growing old fast. She is kindling the faggots that will warm her chill old age.
But still, though passion tugged at her heart strings, the school-miss, the older Eve before the Fall, made her struggle against knowledge.
"I hate you, I hate you like this. Let me go, sir, let me go!"