"Don't!" said Joan quickly, "that is another thing I wish you would not do, make personal remarks; it makes me feel uncomfortable."
"Why don't you tell the truth?" he asked fiercely. "Why don't you say afraid?"
"Because it does not," she answered; her eyes, however, would not meet his. "I think uncomfortable describes it better."
Landon stared at her with sombre eyes. He was beginning to tire of their pretty game of make believe; perhaps impulse was waning within him. Anyway he felt he had wasted enough time on the chase. But to-day Joan seemed very charming, and her fear, for he could see plainly enough that she was afraid, was fanning the flame of his desire into a new spurt of life.
"I am going to make love to you, Pierrette," he said; "I am going to wake up that cold heart of yours. Does the thought frighten you, Pierrette? because even that won't prevent me doing it."
He had drawn her close to him, she could feel his arms round her like strong bands of iron. Joan lifted a face from which all the colour had fled to his.
"Don't, please don't!" Her bewildered mind struggled with all the carefully thought-out things she was going to have said to him. But the crisis was too overwhelming for her; she could only remember the one final thought that had been with her. "You may not want to marry me when you know about me," she whispered, and ended her words with a sob.
The man laughed triumphantly. "I don't want to marry you," he answered, "I want to love you and make you for a little love me, and this is how I begin the lesson." He bent his face to hers quickly, kissing her passionately, fiercely, on the lips.
For a second such a tumult of passionate amazement shook Joan that she stayed quiet in his arms. Then everything that was strong, all the inherited purity in her nature, came to her aid and summoned her fighting forces to resist. She struggled in his arms furiously, she had not known she held such stores of strength; then she wrenched herself free and stood up. Fear, if fear had been the cause of her early discomfort, had certainly left her; it was blind, passionate rage that held her silent before him.
The man rose to his feet and essayed a laugh, but it was rather a strained effort. "That was a most undignified proceeding, Pierrette," he said; "what on earth made you do it?"