"Yes, it was," she said. Suddenly she dropped her voice and turned her face to his. "I saw you out walking several times. I had to know you. Hector, don't you understand?"
He was dazed. He clung to her wrists.
"You fool—" she went on, with a strange little laugh. "You are the fool, funny, silly boy! Don't you see—I'm mad about you, Hector?"
This frightened him more than ever.
"The devil you are!" he ground out. "Who are you, anyway? What am I going to do to you?"
Desperately humiliated, she fought to escape. He held her strongly. She gasped and prayed for release but he would not listen.
"Hector," she had implored, at last, "if you're a gentleman—if you've any sense of chivalry—!"
Any sense of chivalry? She had struck the right note.
He let her go—watched her run away until the night swallowed her. Then, in a sort of stupour, he picked up his swagger stick and walked back to his quarters....
Nothing in his experience, before or since, had so closely resembled a 'love affair.'