"Is it useless to appeal to you again to surrender to the call of love?" countered Don Carlos. "Myra, mia cara, every fibre of my being is pulsing with love for you, and my heart is craving for the joy and rapture that you alone can give. Look into my eyes, mia cara, and whisper that you love me."
He laid his hands on Myra's shoulders as he spoke, compelling her to meet his burning glance, and Myra felt as if she were being hypnotised.
"You love me, Myra darling, and it is only pride that prevents you from confessing yourself conquered," went on the caressing voice. "When you are mine, you will whisper you are glad that I conquered you. You are lovely, my dear, seductive, adorable prisoner, and the beauty of you sets me aching with longing."
His hands slid caressingly from Myra's shoulders down her arms to her hands, which he raised to his lips and then drew round his neck. Myra was trembling, and her breath was coming and going unsteadily, and she felt as if she had lost all powers of resistance, felt as if she had been drugged. She closed her eyes, and a gasping sigh broke from her lips as Don Carlos strained her close to his breast again, murmuring endearments.
"Let me set your heart afire with burning kisses," he murmured. "I will kiss the heart out of you, sweet one, and kiss it back again white hot with my own love and ardour. Give me back kiss for kiss, beloved."
Again he was kissing her, hungrily, passionately, yet tenderly withal. Myra's senses were reeling. He did seem to be drawing the very heart out of her with his lips, and drugging her senses. She felt as if she were suffocating, and again she began to struggle involuntarily after a few minutes as he drew her down with him on to the couch.
"You are stifling me," she panted. "Let me go."
Don Carlos released her at once, and she rose to her feet, pressing her hands instinctively to her heaving bosom, as if to try to still the wild throbbing of her heart. Her lovely face was flushed, her breath was coming and going in sobbing gasps, her eyes, dark with emotion, were feverishly bright, and her whole body seemed afire.
"Let me go now, please," she added gaspingly. "I can bear no more.
I—I think I am going to faint."
She swayed as she spoke, and Don Carlos was on his feet in an instant, and had thrown his arm around her lest she should collapse.