"Do you want me to say that you will always be my best friend?"
"Family Reading—go on. Love and respect and esteem. I'm d——d if I stand it. This is what I think."
He slipped his arms about her, and kissed her hotly upon the lips. She had never been kissed by a man before, and the swift assault found her without argument. She was conscious in a vague way that prudence should have made an end of all this upon the spot. Yet there was a physical magnetism before which she was powerless; an instantaneous revelation of life in its fuller meaning, of a sentiment which had nothing to do with prudence.
"Harry!" she cried, and that was all.
"Gabrielle, you love me—I feel that you do when you are near me."
"How foolish it all is—how mad!"
"I won't have that rot. Why, you are part of my life, Gabrielle."
"Of course, we are very old friends——"
"If you say any word like that I will take you out into the very centre of the pond and kiss you there. Come along and skate now. I feel quite mad."
He caught her in his arms, and they went whirling away. The red-nosed man with the cornet played the "Merry Widow" until his whole body swelled; there were harsh tones of cockneyism, silver laughter of boys and girls, the whirr of good skates cutting the ice. And above all a clear, starless heaven, such as London had not known for many a year.