“You’re crushing me!” Her breath came stifled and sobbing.
Tenderness stamped out his passion. As his grip relaxed, she slipped from him. She was running; he followed. On the edge of the precipice, the red moon swinging behind her like a lantern, she halted. Her hands were held ready to thrust him back.
“It would be better for you that I should throw myself down than—than——”
He seized her angrily and drew her roughly to him. “You little fool,” he panted.
With a sudden abandon she urged herself against him. As he bent over her, her arms reached up and her lips fell warm against his mouth.
“I do love you. I do. I do,” she whispered. “Take care of me. Be good to me. I daren’t trust myself.”
The hotel was asleep when they got back. They fumbled their way up the crooked stairs. Outside her room, as in the darkness they clung together, she took his face between her hands. “And you said I hadn’t any passion!—You’re good, Meester Deck. God bless you.”
Her door closed. He waited. He heard the lock turn.
“When I kiss you without your asking me, you’ll know then,” she had said. His heart sang. All night, in his dreaming and waking, he was making plans.
When he came down next morning, he found the table spread on the terrace. He walked over to it, intending while he waited for her, to sit down and smoke a cigarette. One place had been already used. He hadn’t known that another guest had been staying at the hotel. Calling the inn-keeper, he asked him to have the place reset.