"You're very, very angry with me and with yourself. You are saying to yourself in pained amazement that you have no business in a cellar exchanging persiflage with a presumptuous servant! You are chagrined, mortified! You are astonished at yourself—astounded that the solemn, dignified, distinguished Cabalero Don Michael O'Ryan y Santiago de Chile y Manhattanos——"
I turned red with surprise and wrath—and then slightly dizzy with the delicious effrontery of her beauty which daring had suddenly made dazzling in the candle-light.
For a minute my brain resembled a pin-wheel; then I pulled myself together, but not with the aid of the Admiral. No! The Admiral made me sick. In my sudden rush of exhilaration I derided him.
"Thusis," said I, when I recovered power of speech, "there's just one thing to do with you, and that is to kiss you for your impudence."
"Your own cook! Oh, shocking! Oh, Señor! Oh Don Michael——"
—"And I'm going to do it!——" said I solemnly.
"Remember the seriousness of life!" she warned me, retreating a step or two as I set all my bottles upon the ground. "Remember the life-long degradation entailed by such an undignified proceeding, Don Michael."
That was too much. She saw trouble coming, turned to escape what she had unloosed: and I caught her near the cellar stairs.
Then, under the lifted candle, I saw her face pale a little, change, then a flush stain the white skin to her throat.
"Don't do that," she said, still smiling, but in a quiet and very different voice. "I invited it by my silly attitude;—I know it perfectly well. But you won't do it—will you, Mr. O'Ryan?"