“Now I suppose you’re very angry with me, Tamea.”
“A little. Not so much as I think I shall be tomorrow. I forgive you much tonight because you are not a fool. But—I shall remember some things that you said—and those things that I remember I shall not forgive. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Dan Pritchard roused from the dumb amazement into which he had been thrown by Tamea’s sudden appearance on the scene. “Hey, wait a moment, Mel! I’ll walk downtown with you,” he called. He had a sudden impulse to flee from danger.
But the heavy oaken door had already closed behind his friend, and in the entrance to the drawing room Tamea stood looking at him. “Come to me,” she murmured. “Come, chéri!”
He went.
Tamea’s round, beautiful arms came up around his neck slowly, caressingly, and his head was drawn gently down toward her glorious face until her lips touched his ear.
“That man Mellengair—he is your friend. He is not mine. But if I had, like you, such a friend—ah, I would be so rich! You must never lose him, chéri! Oh, yes, I hate him, but that does not matter. He is very wise, but he does not know your Tamea. Ah, no, dear one. I would have you—ah, so happy—and I would be happy with you. But if to be with me meant sorrow for you—oh, I could not be so cruel! First I would die. And you will believe that? Yes?”
Dan’s heart swelled—with that ecstacy that was almost a pain. And then Tamea kissed his ear lightly, patted his cheek and fled upstairs to her room, leaving him standing there—breathless, with a feeling that, be the price what it might be, he could not afford to miss such another moment as this. . . . It did not occur to him that sorrow and heartbreak might be the outcome of his yielding.