She trembled afresh at his words, but she clung closer. If the fear deepened, so also did the fascination. She tried to picture him as hers—hers, and failed. He was so fine, so splendid, so much too big for her.
He went on, dropping his voice lower, his breath warm upon her neck. "Are you going to take all and give—nothing, Daphne? Did they make you without a heart, I wonder? Like a robin that mates afresh a dozen times in a season? Haven't you anything to give me, little sweetheart? Are you going to keep me waiting for a long, long time, and then send me empty away?"
That moved her. That he should stoop to plead with her seemed so amazing, almost a fabulous state of affairs.
With a little sob, she lifted her face at last. "Oh, Apollo!" she said brokenly. "Apollo the magnificent! I am all yours—all yours! But don't—don't take too much—at a time!"
The plea must have touched him, accompanied as it was by that full surrender. He held her a moment, looking down into her eyes with the fiery possessiveness subdued to a half-veiled tenderness in his own.
Then, very gently, even with reverence, he bent his face to hers. "Give me—just what you can spare, then, little sweetheart!" he said. "I can always come again for more now."
She slipped her arms around his neck, and shyly, childishly, she kissed the lips that had devoured her own so mercilessly the night before.
"Yes—yes, I will always give you more!" she said tremulously.
He took her face between his hands and kissed her in return, not violently, but with confidence. "That seals you for my very own," he said. "You will never run away from me again?"
But she would not promise that. The memory of the previous night still scorched her intolerably whenever her thoughts turned that way.