“I love you, Yvonne. Good God, how I love you!” he cried abruptly.
His eyes burned with a sudden flame of passion as he bent over her. His face quivered; his whole being tingled with the fierce spasm of an uncontrollable desire to crush the warm, adorable body to his breast in the supreme ecstasy of possession.
She surrendered herself to his passionate embrace. A little later she withdrew herself from his arms, her lips still quivering with the fierceness of his kisses. Her eyes, dark with wonder and perplexity, regarded his transfigured face for a long, tense moment.
“Is this love, James?” she whispered. “Is this the real, true love?”
“What else, in Heaven's name, can it be?” he cried. He was sitting upon the arm of her chair, looking down at the strangely pallid face.
“But should love have the power to frighten me?”
“Frighten, my darling?”
“Oh, it is not you who are frightened,” she cried. “You are the man. But I—ah, I am only the woman.”
He stared. “What an odd way to put it, dear.”
Then he drew back, struck by the curious gleam of mockery in her eyes.