Then she looked straight down at the waves flinging themselves against the cliffs, drenching her with spray, moaning, fretting at the barrier, retiring only to do the same thing over and over again.
"What do I want, O Man whom I love? I want a white house within high, white walls, on the edge of the sea. I want my arms full of children—yours and mine. I want love, oh! love and yet more love, that is what I want!"
The man twisted her round and held her at arms' length, her heels within an inch of the edge, her body bent back over the chasm, and her hair, spreading like a banner in the tearing wind, swept about his shoulders and across his face, intoxicating him with its perfume and silken caress.
Passion swept over him, he shook her like a reed, and her foot slipped off the earth into nothingness.
But not a word said she, though she prayed that he might suddenly let go his hold and send her crashing to sweet death on the rocks beneath.
You see what happens when you are decent and honest and have a mind to keep your word—just death rather than dishonour, and pain to others.
Whereas if only she had been dishonest, and therefore commonplace, she would either have chucked her given word to the devil, or the deep grey sea over which she stood, and cleared for her own happiness and a marriage licence; or kept her word in one sense while making deedy little plans of triangular pattern for future reference.
"Is that what you want, oh! heart of mine?" said Jan Cuxson, exulting in the sensation that his hands alone held her metaphorically and actually safe from the depths beneath. "And that is what I am going to give you, beloved, and more, much more in exchange for the treasure you will put into my hands. Oh! Leonie, my love——"
And yet he did not kiss her, but pulled her farther inland and let her go as she essayed to free herself, having come to the absolute breaking point.
What a wooing!