His chivalrous regard for her went straight to her heart. In Noel it would not have surprised her, but in Max it was so unexpected that for a moment she hardly knew how to meet it.
He waited with the utmost patience, his smile, subtly softened but still unmistakably humorous, hovering at the corner of his mouth.
And so after a moment, half-laughing, with a face on fire, she reached out, took the red head between her hands, and bestowed a very small, shy kiss upon his cheek.
The next instant he held her crushed against his heart while his lips pressed hers with all the fiery passion of a man's worship….
It must have been several minutes later that a cracked voice was suddenly uplifted in the verandah singing a plantation love-song with more of pathos than tunefulness.
Olga started at the sound, started violently and guiltily, and slipped out of reach with a scarlet countenance.
"Nick!" she whispered.
Max glanced at the open window, raised his brows, shrugged his shoulders, and strolled across to it. Nick it was, stationed at a discreet distance, but dimly discernible in the darkness.
"Let me go to him first!" murmured Olga.
She passed Max with a touch of the hand and a fleeting smile, and was gone.