The comforting arms which stole round his neck might have understood all about it now.
"Do you really love that Miss Vane?"
"Heaven help me, I do!"
"Can't you stop if you want to?"
"Apparently not; but one doesn't want to. That's the ridiculous part ... the thing grips you, like invisible iron hands, to drag you along a road of withered flowers, forcing you to breathe the rot of that Dead Sea fruit which fills the air with the bitter fumes of jealousy and passion.... Fruit?"
"Cyprian, didn't you not bring me up a cryssalized apricot?"
He nearly chuckled as he stumbled back along his "withered paths" to Reality.
"Sorry, Little Thing. I forgot. You shall have a whole box to-morrow."
"I shan't get a moment's peace to eat them unless we have it as a secret," she suggested wheedlingly.
"Oh!" he cried, delightedly hugging her, "You'll be a woman so much too soon."