‘Let me,’ said Paul, and she surrendered the hand and he peeled the glove from it delicately, and held the white wonder in his own palm. He stooped and kissed it in an idiot rapture. ‘How happy you make me!’ he said, looking up with tears in his eyes. ‘How I love you!’
She stroked his cheek and his hair with the soft ungloved hand, smiling softly at him. He prisoned the hand again, and kissed it again.
‘You are a silly boy,’ she said; ‘a dear, nice, affectionate, silly boy!’ She released her hand and caressed his cheek again. ‘If you were older than you are I shouldn’t allow you to take these liberties, you know.’ Then she bent forward sideways a little, and allowed her hand to stray beyond his shoulder. ‘What makes you fancy that you love an old woman like me, Paul?
‘It’s no fancy,’ he said; ‘it’s life or death with me, Claudia.’
‘Poor boy,’ said Miss Belmont caressingly, and so moved nearer to him and drew his head to her shoulder. ‘Am I kind to you, Paul?’
‘You are an angel,’ said Paul
‘Isn’t it rather cruel to be kind to you, Paul?’
He buried his hot face in the soft drapery of her shoulder, and gave a murmured ‘No; oh, no!’
‘You think you love me, but it’s only a boy’s fancy, Paul It will pass away. I suppose it’s happy whilst it lasts, when I am kind to you. But it can’t last long. I shall be sorry to part, for I like you very much.’
‘We mustn’t part,’ said Paul huskily. ‘Claudia, if you left me I should break my heart.’