“I wouldn’t do anything mean, deceitful, dishonest, cruel. But it’s not your antiquated laws––it’s my own and original law that governs my conduct.”
“You always conform to it?”
“I do. But you don’t conform to yours. So I’ll try to help you remember the petty but always sacred conventions of our own accepted code–––”
And, with unfeigned malice, she began to disengage her hand from his––loosened the slim fingers one by one, all the while watching him sideways with prim lips pursed and lifted eyebrows.
“Try always to remember,” she said, “that, according to your code, any demonstration of affection toward a comparative stranger is exceedingly bad form.”
However, he picked up her hand again, which she had carelessly left lying on the sofa near his, and again she freed it, leisurely.
They conversed animatedly, as always, discussing 98 matters of common interest, yet faintly in her ears sounded the unfamiliar echo of passion.
It haunted her mind, too––an indefinable undertone delicately persistent––until at last she sat mute, absent-minded, while he continued speaking.
Her stillness––her remote gaze, perhaps––presently silenced him. And after a little while she turned her charming head and looked at him with that unintentional provocation born of virginal curiosity.
What had moved him so unexpectedly to deeper emotion? Had she? Had she, then, that power? And without effort?––For she had been conscious of none.... But––if she tried.... Had she the power to move him again?