As well try any other feat in strength which is impossible. And now Culpepper bending his head a little was trying to make her look up, those bold eyes in teasing wait to catch her gaze when she did.
Not for worlds could Selina have looked up. Her heart beat wildly, and the blood pulsed in her throat and pounded at her ears. And as Culpepper holding the hands captive, went on bending to surprise her gaze, her lashes swept lower and yet lower upon her cheeks.
As a picture of shy maidenliness, Mamma and Auntie, the thing as you fancy it in perfection, behold your handiwork!
As a piteous young creature, ignorantly innocent, or innocently ignorant, as you prefer to put it, Mamma and Auntie, the choice in terms is yours, a piteous young creature suddenly overswept with conscious sex that nor you nor any creature has seen fit to explain to her, behold your handiwork! Groping by her young self, filled with terror and horror of self, of life, even of the God who made her as she was, you have left your child to battle as she may with things hideous to her distorted imaginings, rather than know them as attributes natural, decent, and sanctioned of God!
Culpepper bent yet lower to find her eyes through the down sweep of those lashes. The warmth from his young, gloriously alive face, so close to hers, the lift and fall of his breathing, reached her consciousness.
"I had your note, Selina. I wonder, writing me that, if you knew how sweet you were being to me?"
And here she got her hands away because in truth his heart was touched by her piteous terror, and he let her go. She found a chair and pointed one to him.
"You didn't come round any more," she said hurriedly.
He looked across at her oddly, those blue eyes of his within their accentuating black lashes, even humorously baffled in their expression. Seeing that this speech from her was honest and not arch, it was disarming to a lover by its very nature. And yet allowing that it was the child in her that was honest, was he not to gather that the maid in her was disturbed?
And again allowing that it was the child in her that spoke, was it not the maiden in her whose fingers even now were plaiting her dress nervously into folds, her eyes upon these fingers and her color coming and going? Peradventure, Mamma and Auntie, she does you proud, this proper and becoming picture of fluttered and timid maidenhood. You, Mamma, who have been girl, maiden, wife and mother, and have no woman's word for your woman-child! You, Auntie, who discussed the situation frankly enough with Culpepper, the man, but as with a flaming sword of vigilance, have stood guard lest even a breath of the truth reach the ignorance of Selina, the woman.