Van Degen's perturbation was increasing. "But you mustn't go—it's preposterous! Why should a woman like you be sacrificed when a lot of dreary frumps have everything they want? Besides, you can't chuck me like this! Why, we're all to motor down to Aix next week, and perhaps take a dip into Italy—"
"OH, ITALY—" she murmured on a note of yearning.
He was closer now, and had her hands. "You'd love that, wouldn't you? As far as Venice, anyhow; and then in August there's Trouville—you've never tried Trouville? There's an awfully jolly crowd there—and the motoring's ripping in Normandy. If you say so I'll take a villa there instead of going back to Newport. And I'll put the Sorceress in commission, and you can make up parties and run off whenever you like, to Scotland or Norway—" He hung above her. "Don't dine with Chelles to-night! Come with me, and we'll talk things over; and next week we'll run down to Trouville to choose the villa."
Undine's heart was beating fast, but she felt within her a strange lucid force of resistance. Because of that sense of security she left her hands in Van Degen's. So Mr. Spragg might have felt at the tensest hour of the Pure Water move. She leaned forward, holding her suitor off by the pressure of her bent-back palms.
"Kiss me good-bye, Peter; I sail on Wednesday," she said.
It was the first time she had permitted him a kiss, and as his face darkened down on her she felt a moment's recoil. But her physical reactions were never very acute: she always vaguely wondered why people made "such a fuss," were so violently for or against such demonstrations. A cool spirit within her seemed to watch over and regulate her sensations, and leave her capable of measuring the intensity of those she provoked.
She turned to look at the clock. "You must go now—I shall be hours late for dinner."
"Go—after that?" He held her fast. "Kiss me again," he commanded.
It was wonderful how cool she felt—how easily she could slip out of his grasp! Any man could be managed like a child if he were really in love with one….
"Don't be a goose, Peter; do you suppose I'd have kissed you if—"