Her hands were slipping. She ground her teeth and kicked convulsively, but decorously, seeking a foothold that wasn't there on the smooth face of the wall.
At this his tone changed. He came more nearly under and planted himself with wide-spread feet and outstretched arms.
"You can't hold on there any longer," he insisted. "Let go. Drop. I'll catch you."
Only the mortification of that prospect nerved her aching fingers to retain their grip as long as they did--which, however, was not overlong.
She felt herself slipping, remembered that she mustn't scream, whatever happened, experienced an instant of shuddering suspense, then an instantaneous eternity wherein, paradoxically, part of her seemed still to be clinging to the window-ledge while most of her was spinning giddily down through a bottomless pit, saw the grinning moon reel dizzily in the blue vault of heaven--and with a little shock landed squarely in the arms of Mr. Trego.
He staggered widely, for she was a solidly constructed young person, but he recovered cleverly--and had the impudence to seem amused. Sally's first impression on regaining grasp of her wits was of his smiling face, bent over hers, of a low chuckle, and then--to her complete stupefaction--that she was being kissed.
He went about that business, having committed himself to it, in a most business-like fashion; he kissed (as he would have said) for keeps, kissed her lips hungrily, ardently, and most thoroughly; he had been wanting to for a long time, and now that his time was come he made the most of it.
She was at first too stunned and shocked to resist. And for another moment a curious medley of emotions kept her inert in his arms, of which the most coherent was a lunatic notion that she, too, had been wanting just this to happen, just this way, for the longest time. And when at length she remembered and felt her anger mounting and was ready to struggle, he disappointingly set her down upon her feet.
"There!" he said with satisfaction. "Now that's settled--and a good job, too!"
She turned on him furiously.