“The sooner the better,” he said, at last, drawing a long breath. “I’m used to setting out for nowhere at a moment’s notice, you see. So this will be our farewell feast, Cis. You’ll drink to my—to my success?”
“To your happiness, Dick,” she whispered, in a shaking voice.
Mayne looked at her again with such a long gaze that her eyes sank.
“Cecily,” he said at last, huskily, “we’ve known each other for a long time. Do you know the years I’ve loved you?... And perhaps I shall not come back.... May I kiss you once—just to remember all my life?”
She looked at him gravely. “Yes, Dick,” she answered.
With a half cry, Mayne drew her into his arms, and put his lips to hers. It was the kiss he had dreamed of for years; a kiss that in a rapture of mingled torture and delight expressed all that for years he had felt for the woman he held for one brief moment like a lover. A colored mist swam before him as he raised his head. He felt Cecily gently disengage herself, and it was the silence in the room that cleared his brain, and then his sight.
Kingslake was standing just inside the door.
For a moment the stillness seemed to press upon the air like a visible, tangible weight before it was broken by Robert’s savage laugh.
“What liars you women are,” he said, slowly, under his breath, his eyes upon his wife. “Aren’t you? All of you! All alike!”
Mayne made a menacing step towards him.