"Would you preach to the stars, John Markham? They're a merry congregation. They're laughing at you—as I am. A sermon by moonlight with only the stars and a scoffer to listen!"
Her mockery astonished and bewildered him. His indictment of those with whom she affiliated was no new thing in their conversations, and he knew that what he had said was true.
"I'm sorry I spoke," he muttered.
She laughed at him again and threw out her arms toward the moonlit sea.
"What a night for the moralities—for the ashes of repentance! I ask a man into the rose-garden to make love to me and he preaches to me instead—preaches to me! of the world, the flesh and the devil, par exemple! Was ever a pretty woman in a more humiliating position!"
She approached him again and leaned over him, the strands of her hair brushing his temples, her voice whispering mockingly just at his ear.
"Oh, la la! You make such a pretty lover, John. If I could only paint you in your sackcloth and ashes, I should die in content. What is it like, mon ami, to feel like moralizing in a rose-garden by moonlight? What do they tell you—the roses? Of the dull earth from which they come? Don't they whisper of the kisses of the night winds, of the drinking of the dew—of the mad joy of living—the sweetness of dying? Or don't they say anything to you at all—except that they are merely roses, John?"
She brushed the blossom in her fingers lightly across his lips and sprang away from him. But it was too late. She had gone too far and she realized it in a moment; for thought she eluded him once, he caught her in his arms and kissed her roughly on the lips.
"You'd mock at me, would you?" he cried.
She struggled in his arms and then lay inert. She deserved this revenge she knew, but not the carelessness of these kisses of retribution, each of them merciless with the burden of her awakening.