"Rather a crude way of putting it," he said a little uncomfortably. "Nature has given you a power you can use for good. Why not use it?"
"But is it so powerful?"
"On dit."
"What do you think?" She bent forward, leaning to him, smiling audaciously in his eyes. Lionel would have been more than human if he had not felt flattered. This delightful creature, whom at a first meeting he had thought prudish and narrow, had developed amazingly. Companionship for a fortnight with a gay man of spirit and address, who did not lack a generous nature, had brought the bud to blossom. Now as she smiled on him with inviting eyes he felt strongly tempted to complete her education with a kiss. He temporized.
"What does it matter what I think?"
"It may matter a good deal," she said with a meaning he could not fathom.
"Tell me."
She explained herself curiously. Instead of speaking she was silent for a moment, as if choosing a course. Then with a friendly abandon she rested her hands lightly on his shoulders and said, "No. You shall tell me." Then she waited for the inevitable kiss.
Man is a strange animal. (I apologize for this truism, but, really, Lionel himself must be my excuse.) A man may be a savage, a knave, a brute, but beneath every human bosom there lurk some seeds of nobility, however few and atrophied. Juvenile literature abounds with loci classici. The thief who breaks into the night nursery is subdued by the innocent prattle of Baby Tumkins; the drunken osler in the "Pig and Whistle" is sobered by the consumptive angel who lisps, "Daddy, dear daddy, do come home!" The blasphemous ravisher, mad in the hour of victory, is tamed by the sight of a locket ("Heavens! how came this here? Tell me, girl!") and drops his prey with an oath that is half a prayer. And so on ... one need not accumulate examples.
Lionel did not kiss Miss Arkwright. Though he had dwelt on the possibility, hoped for it, almost schemed and certainly desired; though he had decided that his grass-bachelorship permitted such a kiss as was now offered, he refused. Why? Partly, no doubt, because a kiss won by half-forceful methods is worth more than a tribute freely offered; partly because the offer tends to congeal the blood and curb the desire—the ideal has stooped and taken a few inches off her goddess statue; partly, too (the moralist will be glad to note), because he remembered Beatrice.