He lay quite motionless for several seconds, then turned in a leisurely fashion upon his side to survey her.
"You are fastidious?" he asked.
"Of course I am!" Priscilla's words came rather breathlessly. "Don't you think me so?"
Again he was silent for seconds. Then, in a baffling drawl, his answer came:
"If you will allow me to say so, I think you are just the sweetest woman I ever met."
Priscilla met his eyes for a single instant, and looked away. She was burning and throbbing from head to foot. She could find naught to say in answer; no word wherewith to turn his deliberate sentence into a jest. Perhaps in her secret heart she did not desire to do so, for a voice within her, a voice long stifled, cried out that she had met her mate. And, since surrender was inevitable, why should she seek to delay it?
But Carfax said no more. Possibly he thought he had said too much. At least, after a long, quiet pause, he looked away from her; and the spell that bound her passed.
V
THE OPENING GATES
That evening Priscilla found a letter from her stepmother awaiting her—a briefly worded, urgent summons.