He clung the tighter, feeling heart-beat, vein-beat in the momentary small struggle. “What if I will not let you go till lantern-glass and the gates are closed?”
”Then Uncle Bontembi will expect me to make a confession and if I do not, he will put a fine on me, and it will be bad for my mother because we are so poor.”
“But if I kept you, it would be to run away with you, ah, far beyond the Shining Mountains, and live with you forever.”
Her hand went passive again, she leaned toward him a trifle, as though to see more surely the expression on his face. “Do you mean that, Rodvard Bergelin?”
He caught breath. “Why—why should I say it else?”
“You do not. Let me go, let me go, or I’ll make you.” She half turned, trying to rise, bringing the other hand to help pull loose his fingers.
“Will you witch me, witch?” he cried, struggling, and his grasp slipped to her wrist.
“No—.” She snatched at the held hand with the other, catching the thumb and crying fiercely; “I’ll break my own finger, I swear it, if you do not let go.”
“No. . . .” He flung her two hands apart. Lithe as a serpent, she wrung one and then the other from his grasp, but it was with an effort that carried her off balance and supine asprawl. He rolled on his hip to pin her down, hands on her elbows, breast to breast, and was kissing her half-opened mouth till she stopped trying, turning her face from his and whispering: “Let me go. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.”
“I will not,” and he released one hand to feel where the maddening sensation of her breast came against him and the laces began. (The thought was fleetingly seen in the camera obscura of his inner mind that he did not love her and would have to pay for this somehow.)