A moment more and he caught her, and she relapsed in his arms with a sigh of exertion and surrender.
“Faith, you are worth running for!” said he, turning her to him to see into her eyes. For a little he looked at the flushed and beautiful countenance. Her bosom throbbed against his breast; her head thrown back, showed the melting passion of her eyes like slumbering lakes only half hid by her trembling lids, her lips red and full, tempting, open upon pearls. She was his, he told himself, all his, and yet—and yet, he had half a regret that now he had caught he need chase no more—the regret of the hunter when the deer is home, of the traveller who has reached the goal after pleasant journeyings.
His pause was but for a moment, then on her lips he pressed his; on all her glowing face fell the fever of his kisses.
“Nan, Nan!” he whispered, “you are mine, did I not tell you?”
“I suppose I am,” she whispered faintly. Then to herself, “Poor Gilian!”
“And yet,” said he, “I’m not worth it.”
“I daresay not,” she confessed, nestling the more closely in his arras. “But you won me when you saved my life.”
“Did I?” said he. “How very wise of me! Give me a kiss, then!”
She tried to free herself, and the white heather at her neck fell between them. She stooped for it and he to get her kiss, but she was first successful. To him she held out the twig of pale bells.
“The kiss or that; you can have either,” she said. “One is love and the other is luck.”