For once he forgot to be gentle, and dragged her head back roughly, whispering passionate words, his face pressed against her own. For a moment he saw no longer the goddess on her ivory throne, but a woman of flesh and blood, warm, living, and fragrant and to be desired after a man's fashion.
Arithelli closed her eyes and leant back, yielding herself to his caresses. The pressure of his hand across her throat hurt her, but in some strange way it also gave her pleasure. Love, the schoolmaster, again stood by her side teaching her the lesson learnt sooner or later by all women, that pain at the hands of one beloved is a thing close akin to joy. She felt incapable of any struggle or resistance, bodily or mental. She had given her heart therefore her body was also his to use as he willed, and feeling her thus abandoned to him all the boy's chivalry was stirred anew, and the hunger for possession was lost in the desire to serve and protect.
Possibly if he had been forty instead of twenty-eight, he would perhaps have demanded a man's rights. Being, however, according to the world's standard, a fool and a dreamer, he chose to let the moment pass, to refuse what the gods offered, to think of Arithelli rather than of himself.
"I'm hurting you, dear." His voice shook a little, in spite of his efforts to control it.
"No. Nothing hurts now. And I'm glad you love me."
"I hurt you a minute ago. I was mad and a beast. Will you forgive me?
You are not frightened?"
"No. I was only thinking of the future of tomorrow."
"Let us forget to-morrow," the boy pleaded. "Can you not forget for once?"
"We have to-day, and each other. 'Aujourd'hui le Printemps, Ninon.' It's summer for us now, Fatalité! When one loves there is always summer."
He drew her out into the starlight as he heard the noise of the men pushing back their seats and moving about overhead.