"But you said I might pay my court to you——"
"But you don't pay court! You make love to me!"
"What is the essential difference?"
"To court a woman is to be polite, empressé, always ready to serve her, always quick with some stately compliment, some pretty conceit, some bon-mot to please her, some trifle of wit, of gossip." She cast a deliciously wicked look at me. "I have no doubt, Michael, that you could, without effort, measure up to the standard of a faultless courtier.... If you'd be content to do so."
That was too much for me. I stepped toward her and slipped my arm around her pliant waist. She laughed, resisted, flushed, then lost her color and clutched my hand at her waist with her own, striving to unloosen it.
"Don't do that, Michael," she said, breathing unevenly.
"I love you, Thusis——"
"I don't wish to listen——"
"I'm madly in love with you——"
"Michael!"