"I protest against this kissing," cried the roguish host in a loud voice, evidently referring to something that had just taken place in the embrasure of the farther window. "On fait venir l'eau dans la bouche! Monopoly is strictly prohibited. Our rights and feelings must be taken into just consideration." Frenzied applause followed. What difference did it make?—they were the world's Bohemians—here to-day, there to-morrow!—before another moonrise they would be scattered west and south;—the ladies ought to kiss them all for good luck.
So the kiss of farewell was given under the great gate, overhung by vine-tendrils drooping like a woman's hair love-loosened.
The beauty's lips shrank from the pressure of the stranger's;—it was a fruitless phantom sort of kiss. "Y yo, señor," cried the little Mexican, standing on tiptoe as she threw her arms about his neck. Everybody laughed except the recipient of the embrace. He had received an electric shock of passion which left him voiceless and speechless, and—it seemed to him that his heart had ceased to beat.
Those carmine-edged lips seemed to have a special life of their own as of the gymnotus—as if crimsoned by something more lava-warm than young veins: they pressed upon his mouth with the motion of something that at once bites and sucks blood irresistibly but softly, like the great bats which absorb the life of sleepers in tropical forests;—there was something moist and cool and supple indescribable in their clinging touch, as of beautiful snaky things which, however firmly clasped, slip through the hand with boneless strength;—they could not themselves be kissed because they mesmerized and mastered the mouth presented to them;—their touch for the instant paralyzed the blood, but only to fill its motionless currents with unquenchable fires as strange as of a tropical volcano, so that the heart strove to rise from its bed to meet them, and all the life of the man seemed to have risen to his throat only to strangle there in its effort at self-release. A feeble description, indeed; but how can such a kiss be described?
. . . . . . . . .
Six months later the stranger came back from Honduras, and deposited some small but heavy bags in the care of his old host. Then he called the old man aside, and talked long and earnestly and passionately, like one who makes a confession.
The landlord burst into a good-natured laugh, "Ah la drôle!—la vilaine petite drôle! So she made you crazy also. Mon cher, you are not the only one, pardieu! But the idea of returning here on account of one kiss, and then to be too late, after all! She is gone, my friend, gone. God knows where. Such women are birds of passage. You might seek the whole world and never find her; again, you might meet her when least expected. But you are too late. She married the guitarrista."