But the moment of rapture, of almost unendurable bliss is short indeed, for suddenly he feels her shrinking from him, and though for yet another moment he holds her against her will, the struggle soon ends, and he releases her, feeling what he has never yet felt when with her, that is, bewildered, hurt, and yes, angry.
And then, when she sees that new alien glance of anger in eyes which have never looked at her but kindly, Nancy feels a dreadful pang of pain, as well as of shamed distress. She creeps up nearer to him, and puts her hand imploringly on his arm—that arm which a moment ago held her so closely to him, but which now hangs, apparently nerveless, by his side.
"Gerald!" she whispers imploringly. "Don't be angry with me," and her voice drops still lower as she adds piteously, "You see, I knew we were doing wrong. I—I felt wicked."
And then, as he still makes no answer, she grows more keenly distressed. "Gerald?" she says again. "You may kiss me if you like." And as he only looks down at her, taking no advantage of the reluctant permission, she falters out the ill-chosen words, "Don't you know how grateful I am to you?"
And then, stung past endurance, he turns on her savagely:—"Does that mean that I have bought the right to kiss you?"
But as, at this, she bursts into bitter tears, he again takes her in his arms, and he does kiss her, violently, passionately, hungrily. He is only a man after all.
But alas! These other kisses leave behind them a bitter taste. They lack the wild, exquisite flavour of the first.
At last he tells her, haltingly, slowly, of Mr. Stephens' suggestion, but carefully as he chooses his words he feels her shrinking, wincing at the images they conjure up; and he tells himself with impatient self-reproach that he has been too quick, too abrupt—that he ought to have allowed the notion to sink into her mind slowly, that he should have made Daisy, or even his father, be his ambassador.
"I couldn't do that!" she whispers at last, and he sees that she has turned very white. "I don't think I could ever do that! Think how awful it would be if—if after I had done such a thing I found that poor Jack was not dead? Some time ago—I have never told you of this—some friend, meaning to be kind, sent me a cutting from a paper telling of a foreigner who had been taken up for mad in Italy, and confined in a lunatic asylum for years and years! You don't know how that story haunted me. It haunted me for weeks. You wouldn't like me to do anything I thought wrong, Gerald?"
"No," he says moodily. "No, Nancy—I will never ask you to do anything you think wrong." He adds with an effort, "I told my father last night that I doubted if you would ever consent to such a thing."