“My vanity will not permit. I feel sure that your remarkable frankness would not allow you to disguise your disappointment.”
“Well, I shall see you on Sunday. You are coming with Miss Gordon to dine with me. She has accepted for you.”
“I shall wait until then. I look better in evening clothes and when I am clean.”
“I like your voice and your figure, and you certainly have a remarkable amount of magnetism,” she said meditatively. “Good heavens! what a row those idiots are making. And do look at that bonfire. It looks for all the world as if the earth had run its tongue out at the moon.”
Clive wondered why he did not kiss her. He certainly wanted to, and he certainly would have been justified. He recalled no other attractive woman who would have had to offer half the encouragement with which Miss Belmont had recklessly toyed. A man who coined epigrams for sale had once said of him: “Clive is thoroughbred; he can drink the strongest whiskey, smoke the blackest cigars, and he never fails to kiss a pretty woman when the opportunity offers.” And yet, so far, something about Miss Belmont stayed him. He had no intention that it should endure, however.
The scene was growing more and more picturesque. Behind them was a great roar, crossed by the howling and yelling of two hundred and twenty-one abandoned throats. The remotest aisles of the forest were crimson. Every needle of the delicate young redwoods, every waving frond was etched minutely on the red transparency. The thousand columns with their stark capitals wore a softened and gracious aspect, albeit the general effect of the night was infernal.
“Are you going?” asked Clive.
“No.” She curled her lips defiantly away from her teeth.
Clive crossed the short space between them with one step, lifted her in his arms and walked rapidly up the trail. For a moment she was too stupefied to protest; then she attempted violently to free herself.
“What do you mean?” she cried furiously. “Do you know who I am? I am in the habit of doing exactly as I please. Everybody knows me here. If you have misunderstood me it’s because you are a thick-headed Englishman, used to women who are either stupid or bad.”