Holding her within one arm he tried to turn up her face to his. “Loseis . . . dearest . . . before I go,” he whispered imploringly. “Please, Loseis. . . . To remember all those lonely nights . . .”
She resisted with all her strength. “No! No! No! No! Not yet! If you kiss me I shall never be able to let you go! . . . Ah, let me go while I want to go!”
That naïve cry touched his heart. He released her. The instant she was released she lost all her desire to run. She stood there in front of him, very still.
“You had better go,” he said shakily.
“Put your hands behind your back!” she whispered breathlessly. “Stoop down a little.”
He obeyed.
Like lightning her arms went around his neck, and her lips were pressed hard against his. Then like a shadow she was gone. Through the dark her caressing whisper came back to him.
“Come back soon, dear!”
When Loseis got back to the Women’s House, Gault was sitting there by the fire, smoking a fresh cigar. He sprang up with a pleasant, fatherly sort of smile. His eyes dwelt lightly on Loseis’s face, but she had an impression just the same, that they were boring into her. Well, let them bore! At the business of hiding her heart she was fully his match. She showed him a smooth, untroubled face.