She did not resist. He caught her closer and closer and kissed her upon the cheeks, the eyes, the low-falling masses of nut-brown, fragrant hair.
"Turn your face to me, darling."
His lips met hers for one long moment.
. . . He hardly heard her faint-voiced, "Gilbert, you mustn't." He sank back upon the cushions with a strange blankness and emptiness in his mind.
He had kissed her, her lovely lips had been pressed to his.
And, behold, it was nothing after all. It was just a little girl kissing him.
"Kiss met Kiss me again!" he said savagely. "You must, you must! Rita, my darling, my darling!"
She pressed her cool lips to his once more—how cool they were!—almost dutifully, with no revolt from his embrace, but as she might have kissed some girl friend at parting after a day together.
All evil, dominant passions of his nature, hidden and sleeping within him for so long, were awake at last.
He had held Rita in his arms. Yet, whatever she might say or do in her reckless school-girl fashion, she was really absolutely innocent and virgin, untouched by passion, incredibly ignorant of the red flame which burned within him now and which he would fain communicate to her.