"I was wondering when it would come," she said slowly, as he released her. "When you spoke to the German about the bad word, I began to wonder. I knew it would come. Kiss me again, my friend, and we will go on."
"Are we getting towards the landing-stage?" he asked her, as the next roof was crossed. "I mustn't miss my boat, you know."
"Oh, that!" she answered. "You want to go back?"
"Well, of course," he replied, in some surprise. "That's what I was trying to do when I knocked at your door. I've missed my dinner as it is."
"Missed your dinner!" she repeated, with a bubble of mirth. "Ye-es; you have lost that, but,"—she came to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, speaking softly—"but you have seen me. Is it nothing, friend, that you have saved me?"
He had stopped, and she was looking up to him, half-smiling, half- entreating, wholly alluring. He looked down into her dark face, with a sudden quickening about the heart.
"And all this fighting," she continued, as though he were to be convinced of something. "You conquer men as though you were bred on the roofs of Mozambique. You fight like—like a hero. It is a rush, a blow, a tumble, and you have them lying at your feet. And when you remember all this, will you not be glad, friend—will you not be glad that it was for me?"
He nodded, clearing his throat huskily. Her hand on his shoulder was a thing to charm him to fire.
"I'd fight—I'd fight for you," he replied uneasily, "as long as—as long as there was any one to fight."
He was feeling his way in speech, as best he could, past conventionalities. There had dawned on him, duskily and half-seen, the unfitness of little proprieties and verbose frills while he went to war across the roofs with this woman of passion.