She greeted him with an inquiring lilt of the voice. Peter came awkwardly forward.
"Did you hit?" he asked, for talking's sake.
"Two."
She leaned on the gate, hatefully smiling at him. Peter felt he must turn and run from her eyes, or that he must answer them.
He moved quickly towards her, but she did not stir. He gripped her by the arm, looked deliberately into her face, then bent and kissed her. She remained quite still, seeming merely to wait and to suffer. She neither retreated nor responded. Passion died utterly in Peter at the touch of her smiling lips. He stood away from her, brutal and chill.
"You asked me to do that," he said.
Still she smiled, betraying no sign that anything had occurred.
"You must help me to find the rabbits," she said, looking away at last towards the warren. "We're losing the light."
There was a suspicion of the fine lady in her manner, assumed to deride him. They hunted among the bracken. Peter found the dead rabbits, and they moved silently up the hill. At the garden gate they paused while he handed over his burden. Her face still kept the maddening expression of the moment when he had kissed her. But Peter's eyes now blazed back at her in wrath, and her look changed to one of slyly affected terror.
"Are you going to kiss me again?" she asked.