Recovering a little, she drew her hands swiftly across face and eyes that still burned with his kisses.
"Oh!" she cried brokenly, "why did you--why did I--?"
"What's the good of asking that? It's done now," he argued with a touch of aggrieved resentment. "I didn't mean--I meant to--I don't know what I meant. Only--never this."
He took an impatient stride or two in the shelter of the shadow, turned back to her, expostulant: "It's too bad! I'd have given worlds--"
"But now I've gone and done it!" she retorted bitterly. In chagrin, her own indignation mounted. "It is too bad, poor Mr. Lyttleton!"
That was too much; he came closer and grasped her wrist. "Why do you talk that way to me?" he demanded wrathfully. "What have I done--?"
"You? Nothing!" she broke in, roughly wrenching her hand free in a fury of humiliation. "Do you ever do anything? Isn't the woman always the aggressor? Never your fault--of course not! But don't, please, worry; I shan't ever remind you. You're quite free to go and forget what's happened as quickly as you like!"
She scrubbed the knuckles of one hand roughly across her quivering lips. "Forget!" she cried. "Oh, if only I might ever . . . But that's my penance, the mortification of remembering how I took advantage of the chivalry of a man who didn't care for me--and couldn't!"
"You don't know that," Lyttleton retorted.
Provoked to imprudence by this sudden contrariety, this strange inconsistence, he made a futile attempt to regain her hand. "Don't be foolish. Can't you see I'm crazy about you?"