"You think——" she began again.
But she got no further. With a silent movement, Deerehurst laid his hand upon her arm.
"Don't you think we have fenced long enough? Don't you think I have been extraordinarily patient?"
Clodagh turned very cold.
"Patient?" she said indistinctly.
He drew her suddenly closer to him; and before she could resist, he had kissed her hair, her lips, her neck.
"Yes, patient, because I have never before asked for this. Because I have been content to kiss your hand, when I might long ago——" He bent over her again. But something in the white face and wild eyes that confronted him arrested him. He drew back and looked at her.
"Come!" he said. "The play is over! Give me a kiss of your own accord."
Clodagh said nothing. Terror mastered her.
"Come! Give me a kiss!"