But the feeling of his eyes never off her made her stop all at once and laugh hysterically.
A crisis had to be faced sooner or later. Things might as well come to a head now as to-morrow or next week.
At that moment Pansy remembered the man who had held her with such fierce strength and passion in the moon-lit garden of the villa. And she wondered, not without a touch of alarm, how he would take her refusal.
She got up and went to his side.
"I must give you something else to do than just watching me. It makes me nervous," she said.
From a box on a table near she took a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Then she struck a match and held it towards him.
In a lazy, contented manner, he let her do it. But when the cigarette was lighted, he did not give her time to draw her hand away.
He caught her wrist, and drawing her hand a little closer, blew out the match. When this was done, he did not let her hand go. Instead, he took one or two puffs at the cigarette, all the time watching her closely.
"I didn't give you my hand 'for keeps,'" she said. "I want it back again, please."
It was hint enough for any man, but Le Breton did not take it.