He deliberately leaned forward to look into her face. The memory of that moment when he had held her in his arms, the breaking of the storm, the thrill, the wonderful, unanalyzed excitement which seemed to play about them like the lightning which was soon to flash across the sea and land, came back to him. He looked deliberately into her face,—still as the grave,—at the large eyes, which were listlessly fixed upon the streaming people.
"You are the most amazing person!" he said softly. "Perhaps, as you were never at the Hotel Universal, you were never in Rakney? Perhaps it was not you who came to me with the storm, who tapped at my window, who stood there like the daughter of the storm itself, who—"
"It was I who came to Rakney," she said. "You know that very well, Mr. Deane. Neither have I forgotten it. But I think that you should not remind me just now of that."
Of course she was right, but Deane felt a little unhinged. Her invulnerability was maddening. "Perhaps not," he answered. "Perhaps I have no right to remind you of that night, of the time when you crept in from the storm, crept into my arms."
She turned her head slightly away, as though interested in the passing throng. No flush of color tinged her cheeks. Her straight, firm lips never trembled. He tried to take her hand,—small it was, and encased in old, neatly-mended gloves. She drew it quietly but firmly away. She remained silent.
"Perhaps I have no right," he continued, "to remind you of these things, but neither have you the right to deny our later meeting. You are playing some sort of a game with me," he continued, a little roughly, "and your methods, whatever they may be, include a lie. Therefore, I myself take license."
"If you have quite finished, Mr. Deane," she said, "I should be glad. My visit to you, and all the circumstances connected with it, is one of the things which I wish to forget."
"To relegate to the same place in your memory," he remarked, "as your brief essay in the rôle of a chambermaid."
She leaned out of the window. "Here we are," she remarked. "I am anxious about my brother. Please hurry."