His big left hand gripped her cheeks, and he turned her face up to his and kissed her violently, more than once—a dozen times. Gabrielle, smothered, frightened, and struggling, pushed at his breast with all the strength of her young arms.
The opposition seemed to enrage Tom, for he only held her the tighter, his superior height as well as strength giving him all the advantage.
“Tom——” the girl panted. “I shall call!”
“Call,” he answered, easily and smiling. And the wild scream of the winds, whirling over the high roofs of Wastewater, seemed to echo the contemptuous note of angry laughter in his voice.
“No, but Tom—please—please!”
“Ah, well, that’s better! Now you say please, do you? Now you’re not quite so cold,” Tom muttered, kissing her hair and forehead, and raising the two hands he had caught tightly in one, to kiss the fingertips. “Now you’ll not be so cool, putting me off, asking for time, huh? Kiss me, Gay. You love me, don’t you?”
She would be out of it all to-morrow, safe with the quiet nuns in Boston, Gabrielle reminded herself. If she could but get away now, down to lights and voices, into the peace of her own room, and to-morrow—away!
“Tom, I can’t talk to you while you frighten me so!”
“Why, what are you afraid of?” he asked, very slightly releasing her, his black eyes seeming to devour her, and his breath in her face. “I’m not going to hurt you! I just wanted you to know that I’m tired of your holding me off, of having you tell me that ‘of course you like me,’ and all the rest of it. You’re going to marry me next week, aren’t you?” he asked, harshly.
Gabrielle held herself as far away from him as the iron grip about her shoulders permitted, and rested her hands perforce upon his shoulders.