"It shall be stronger," he began.
"No—friendship does not thrive on kisses."
"Love—" he began. But her quick gesture silenced him.
"Love, boy! What can you know of love!"
"Nothing. Teach me!"
She looked up into his face, her hands upon his shoulders holding him at arm's length, flushed with her empty victory—ice-cold with self contempt at the means she had used to accomplish it. Another man—a man of her own world—would have played the game as she had played it, mistrusting the tokens she had shown and taking her coquetry at its worldly value; would have kissed and perhaps forgotten the next morning. But as she looked in Markham's eyes she saw with dismay that he still read her heart correctly and that the pact of truthfulness which neither of them had broken was considered a pact between them still. Her gaze fell before his and she turned away, sure now that for the sake of her pride she must deceive him.
"No, I can teach you nothing, it seems, except, perhaps, that you should not make the arms of your lady black and blue. Love is a zephyr, mon ami, not a tornado."
He stared at her, bewildered by the sudden transformation.
"I—I kissed you," he said stupidly. "You wanted me to."
"Did I?" she taunted him. "Who knows? If I did"—examining her wrist—"I have now every reason to regret it."