"Well, I'm here," she said, by way of beginning, looking up into his face.
"I was looking for you in the other direction," he replied, throwing away his half-burnt cigar. "I ought to have known better. You are always doing the opposite of that which one expects."
A smile lit up her face for a moment, as she flashed her beautiful wide eyes upon him. She seemed a part of that beauteous night, elfish and delicate as a moonbeam or a flower, fragile as the song of a bird. He could not speak, but stood drinking her in with his eyes and soul, his face wearing a mixed expression of rapture and pain. She knew what he felt, and like him, she, too, struggled with herself for the mastery of her emotion.
"Do you know," she said at length, "this is the first time I have ever been guilty of a clandestine meeting with a man. If my father knew I was here, he would be beside himself."
"Then you did want to come!" he exclaimed.
"Of course. Otherwise, why should I be here?" she responded shyly, raising her eyes to his for an instant and then lowering them again.
"Bessie!" he cried, starting toward her.
"Hush!" she said, raising her hand in protest and checking him. Had he taken her in his arms then and there, she would have surrendered without a struggle, for she was in that soft, languid mood of a woman in love in spite of herself. But he dared not give way to his impulse. He loved her too much, and feared lest his impetuosity might ruin forever his chance of winning her.
"I know it was foolish of me to come, especially when there was no reason for it," she continued with assumed indifference, casting a sidelong glance at him out of the corners of her eyes. In spite of the pain she knew she inflicted, she could not resist flirting with him just a little even at such a moment. It filled her with such exquisite joy to feel anew the power she exercised over him and the unfathomable depth of his love which each fresh thrust at his heart revealed to her.
"I came here," she slowly resumed, "to ask what you think of Chiquita?"