“I’m afraid I’m only hypnotized by all this atmosphere sometimes—by the kindness and the care you’ve given me.”
“Then you can stay hypnotized—you can stay hypnotized forever because I haven’t begun to be kind to you yet or to care for you as I am going to. There are so many things I want to do.”
“Perhaps I only want to lie back and let you do them—perhaps it’s all laziness. If I can only be sure, Anthony!”
“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. This is all natural. It will all take its natural course.”
Horatia was not listening.
“A few months ago it was Jim. You remember how I told you it was Jim then. Aren’t you aghast at my infidelity?”
He was glad to have Jim’s name in the open, reluctant as he was to spoil his love-making by discussion.
“It’s not infidelity, sweetheart. It was the excitement—the fascination of certain circumstances. It wasn’t real. You imagined yourself into a situation. This is real. I want you to marry me soon and let me show you how real it can be. I want to live with you. Every moment I spend away from you now is wasted. I want to have you always—with me—in our home—in the depths of me—my wife.”
He had let her go a little, visioning the life as it came to him—emotion enriched by the joy of life together. Horatia watched his face, tender, immensely uplifted by this passion which led so directly to the high-spirited life of which he dreamed. And a change was coming over her. She was no longer relaxed. His love had not repelled her. But this talk of marriage, this pressing intimacy, was that drawing her? Anthony noticed no change in her. Swept by the sense of her presence, he gathered her close again and, passionate now, bent to her lips with the kiss that told of his passion. But everything changed. That caress woke in her a flood of resistance, of defence, that cleared her mind as a thunderstorm clears the air. It was Jim who had kissed her like that. It could not be done again. It was Jim who had the right!
She wrenched herself away.