The frown on his brow deepened.
“You know how I hate that sort of show,” he answered. “I’ve always avoided social functions. They don’t interest me.”
“Very well,” she said. “Then I must decline the invitation.”
He swung round on her quickly and caught her up in his arms and held her tightly, muttering against her lips, and punctuating the words with kisses.
“Decline it... yes... I can’t let the world—any one—come between you and me. Why should you want interests apart from your home? Your home is here, little one, in the depths of my heart.”
She felt his heart thumping against his chest, beating hard and fast as the heart of some one labouring under great excitement; she heard his breath escaping in quick deep gasps, and saw the passionate ardour which burned in his eyes; and she gave way, yielding her will to his stronger will, reluctantly, but with a growing sense of the futility of striving against him any longer. He silenced her protests with kisses, holding her head against his shoulder and keeping his lips on hers.
Book Three—Chapter Twenty One.
For a time Hallam kept the social world at arm’s length, and continued to monopolise his wife, and to persuade himself that she needed nothing beyond his love to make life perfect for her, as it was for him.