“Silly boy,” she answered, as she came toward him, and then she quickly added: “Oh, Adam, would you mind just clasping this strap?”
The strap was a narrow bit of finery which crossed her bare shoulder. She had artfully loosened the golden clasp and now came to present shoulder, strap, clasp and all for re-arrangement.
“There is nothing I can do with greater ease,” said Rust, “There you are,—done already.” He had performed his office with amazing dexterity and with a touch so fleeting that she would never have known when it alighted.
“Oh, you haven’t done it right, my dear foolish Adam,” she said, with a delicious little chuckle. “I’ll put my arm across your shoulder, so. Now, make it right, do, Adam, please.”
She dropped her exquisite arm on his shoulder as she spoke and edged closer. She turned so that her face was so near to his that he could feel how glowing warm she was. Her breath fanned against his cheek, hotly. The man felt a sense of intoxication stealing upon him. Yet he was fixing the clasp as briefly as before, when she made a movement with her slipper.
“Oh, I am falling,” she said in a little cry, and throwing both arms about him, to support herself, she was clasped close to his breast, for a moment, before he could seem to re-establish her balance. In that brief time a mad horde of thoughts ran riotously through his brain. She was beautiful; she loved him; she had fascinated something in him always. Could he not be happy, loving her and having her love in return? Why not run away with her—to the Continent—anywhere—and fill the aching void in his nature with love and caresses!
His heart was beating furiously. He trembled. A fever leaped into his brain. Through his arms shot a galvanic contraction, as they halted in the act of closing about the superb, slender figure he was holding. It seemed as if he must kiss her, on her lips, her throat—her shoulder!
“Adam, I am dying!” she whispered to him again, as he held her.
“Don’t die standing up,” he said, with a sudden recovery of the mastery over himself. “Sit down and do it calmly.”
He swayed her aside, and there was nothing she could do but to take the seat she had occupied before.