She threw herself back against the cushions, seizing both my hands in hers. She gazed at me unflinchingly, daringly, mockingly. She drew me to her and thrust me from her with quick sharp jerks. She treated the situation so lightheartedly, so theatrically, that I could have kissed her with impunity. But it would have been like kissing the statue of a woman. She would have remained unmoved, unresponsive. There would have been no adventure of conquest.
“No, Miss Impudence,” I said, “you’re wrong. I wish sometimes my heart were safe in bed. You and I have been good friends. You came to me at a time when I most needed you. You never guessed the good you were doing. If this hadn’t happened, I would never have told you. But when I heard something said about you, which no girl would like to have said unless it were true, I thought it was time I should be going. You’ve been so good to me that I couldn’t return your good with evil.”
“But, my dear, I daresay I’ve flirted with half-a-hundred men. It’s very nice of you to think I haven’t, and to be so careful of me. But really it doesn’t matter what anybody says. I don’t want you to run away because of that, just when we were having such a good time together.”
“You won’t let me be serious,” I protested. “Now I want you to imagine for a minute that I’m old, and inoffensive, and have white hair.”
“Oh, yes, and about seventy.”
“About seventy-five I should say—I’ve known some pretty lively men of seventy.”
“All right. About seventy-five. I’m imagining.”
“My dear girl, you’re twenty-four or thereabouts, and you’re extremely beautiful. No man can look at you without being fascinated. I’ve often wanted to kiss you myself.”
“Then why didn’t you do it?”
“Fiesole, you’re not playing the game,” I said sternly. “Please go on imagining.”