She had divined this lassitude in the depths of his being, and drew him yet closer to her.
“Let us resign ourselves, Ralph,” she said. “Let us accept the inevitable. I do not fear death with you. But I want it to surprise me in your arms—my mouth on your mouth, Ralph. Life can never give us greater happiness.”
Her two arms enlaced him like a collar from which he could no longer free himself. Little by little her lips drew nearer and nearer to his.
He resisted, however. To kiss those lips which offered themselves to him, was to accept defeat and, as she said, resign himself to the inevitable. But he would not. All his nature rose in revolt against such cowardice.
But Aurelie implored him, stammering the words which weaken and disarm.
“I love you—do not refuse that which should be—I love you—I love you.”
Their lips met. He enjoyed the intoxication of a [[286]]kiss in which there was all the ardor of life and the terrible pleasure of death. Darkness seemed to envelop them more quickly, now that they abandoned themselves to the delicious torpor of the embrace. The water was rising.
It was a passing weakness; and Ralph tore himself out of it violently. The thought that this charming creature, whom he had saved so many times, was about to endure the terrible torture of the water that forces its way into you and smothers you and kills you, shook him with horror.
“No, no!” he cried. “This shall not be! Death for you? No! I will find a way to prevent such a monstrous thing!”
She wished to hold him back. She grasped his wrists and implored him in lamentable accents: