He spoke more sternly, “Seriously, you must tell me. You’ve brought me to London and—by Jove, I almost believe you tried to make me miss my train. It isn’t sporting. Why don’t you turn back to The MÃÆétropole. I’ll get you a room and——.”
“Too many people to see us,” she said shortly.
He had only one means of stopping her—to catch hold of the reins. Too risky! He gazed about him, wondering what to do. They were traversing the Embankment—it was empty save for outcasts huddled on benches like corpses. The night looked sodden. The river gleamed murkily. Lights on bridges, hanging like chains, shone obscurely.
She was mocking him in low caressing tones. “You don’t want to leave me? Say you don’t.”
The odd repetition of the question struck him. He had missed its first significance. It couldn’t be! He pressed nearer, peering into her face. He caught the hungry pleading in her eyes—the mad defiance. “You mean——? You never meant——. Eve, you’re too good a woman.”
She halted the horses, and gazed down on him smilingly. She shook her head slowly, denying his assertion of her goodness. “You hadn’t guessed?”
“Guessed!” He drew himself upright. The passion in her voice appalled him.
Her arms went about him; cold wet lips were pressing his mouth. “You dear boy-man! You dear boy-man!”
He thrust her from him. He was choking. Her lips—they scorched him. He had seen in all women’s faces the likeness to his mother’s and Kay’s. But now——.
A bedraggled creature, in tattered finery, with a broken plume nodding evilly across her forehead, struggled from a bench, shuffled across the pavement and whined up at him. He took no notice. He tried not to believe what had been meant. Through their nervous silence trees shuddered; the muffled skirmish of the rain thudded.