"I don't want to marry you," she responded haughtily, and completed her triumph. Something stronger than passion—that something compounded partly of moral fibre, partly of a phlegmatic temperament, guided her at the critical moment. His words had been casual, but her reception of them charged them with seriousness almost before he was aware. A passing impulse was crystallized by the coldness of her manner into a permanent desire.
"If I were free to do it, I'd make you want to," he said.
She moved from him, walking rapidly into the deeper shelter of the willows. The autumn sunlight, shining through the leafless boughs, cast a delicate netting of shadows over the brilliant fairness of her body. He saw the rose of her cheek melting into the warm whiteness of her throat, which was encircled by two deliciously infantile creases of flesh. To look at her led almost inevitably to the desire to touch her.
"Are you going without a word to me, Blossom?"
"I don't know what to say—you never seem to believe me."
"You know well enough what I want you to say—but you're frozen all through, that's what's the matter."
"Good-bye, Mr. Jonathan."
"At what hour to-morrow, Blossom?"
She shook her head, softly obstinate.
"I mustn't meet you again. If grandma—or any of the others found out they would never forgive me—they are so stern and straight. I've gone too far already, and besides—-"