“Joan! It’s got to be more than this. You know how I want you. I’m not going on playing at love. I’m through. Have been all winter.”
She stayed very still in his repudiating grip. But she smiled. She could wait, smiling. She had only to wait a minute, however. And it was a blissful minute, tinglingly electric with her power over him. His arm went suddenly around her shoulders. She lifted her face. He kissed her eyes shut before he kissed her slightly parted lips.
Joan could surrender more in a kiss than many women can surrender in a life-time of more dangerous giving,—for all the complexities and refined subtilities of her nature. Joan’s desire for Hugh’s desire was fully satisfied in that long kiss. As for Hugh, flames—a conflagration—roared against the dark of his mind. This was chaos to him, not satisfaction. But a shadowy sort of consolation would come to him later in the realization that once again Joan had loved him a little.
Now he was holding her cheek close against his with the hand that had held her away a minute ago. Their faces were as close, as hard pressed, as the palms of their hands.
Not until the motor slowed to a stop and Amos had got down and was coming around to open the car door did they draw apart. Joan moved then, and the interior of the car was flooded with light. How could she have delivered them up so ruthlessly to the glare? Probably for appearances. But surely Joan was superior to wanting to justify herself to her chauffeur!
Hugh saw her bright lips smiling, satisfied. His kisses had not crushed out their brightness. Her eyes, too, were bright and enigmatically smiling. She barely touched the hand he held to her as she alighted. But what had he expected! It was like a dream that recurs.... And the waking was always the same.
They were standing together at her door, but as yet Hugh had not rung the bell. She did not wait for him to do so, but stretched her own hand, as she had stretched it to turn on the light that brought desolation in the car a minute ago, and simultaneously turned to speak to Amos, who remained at attention by the limousine door. “What are you waiting for, Amos? That is all for to-night.” But Amos was not the complete automaton he might appear. He said, “I thought I’d be taking Mr. Weyman back.”
“He prefers to walk. Good night, Amos.” The hall door was opening. Amos muttered half audibly, but intending Joan to hear, “It’s nothing at all to drive Mr. Weyman back to Wild Acres. He’s not—dressed for walking!”
Joan was very short with his incivility. “Do as I say,” she commanded crisply. “And put the car up.”
Then she gave her hand to Hugh. “Good night, Hugh,” she murmured. “Do run over and see me often, now I’m back, won’t you? We’ve lots to get caught up with. No end of things.”