And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over the face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful arms. She shrank from it—feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear; but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on the arm nearest to him.
"I gave you no leave!" she said passionately, under her breath, as he let her go.
He met her flashing look with tender humbleness.
"Marcella!"
The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered—yet a chill had passed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic.
"Not to-morrow," she repeated steadily, though dreading lest she should burst into tears, "and not till I see clearly—till I can—" She caught her breath. "Now I am going back to Lady Winterbourne."
CHAPTER XIV.
For some hours after he reached his own room, Wharton sat in front of his open window, sunk in the swift rushing of thought, as a bramble sways in a river. The July night first paled, then flushed into morning; the sun rose above the empty street and the light mists enwrapping the great city, before he threw himself on his bed, exhausted enough at last to fall into a restless sleep.
The speculation of those quick-pulsed hours was in the end about equally divided between Marcella and the phrases and turns of his interview with Mr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred in him by that interview—heightened by the sight of Raeburn—that had driven him past recall by the most natural of transitions, into his declaration to Marcella.
But he had no sooner reached his room than, at first with iron will, he put the thought of Marcella, of the scene which had just passed, away from him. His pulses were still quivering. No matter! It was the brain he had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work.