He looked away from her into the wind-swept night.
"Are you angry because I did?"
"I love you," he burst out. "God, how I love you!"
She laughed softly. Her hand slid down his arm, clasped for a moment the wrist in which his pulses leapt madly to her touch, wreathed itself, cool and strong and smooth, around his palm. "And I love you," she half-whispered gaily. "I'm terribly in love with you"—a pause of deliberate intent—"to-night. Because you've been away from me so long."
"Ah, yes, to-night!" He made no effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "But, to-morrow——"
"To-night's to-night," she broke in happily. "We've got lots of it to ourselves. It's only nine o'clock. I broke away early on purpose." Arrested by the look on his face, she added with exasperation and protest: "Cary! You're not going to play propriety to-night? When we haven't seen each other for so long?"
She shook the gleamy mist of her hair about her face, gave a gnomish bend and twist to body and neck and peered sidelong at him from out the tangle.
Suddenly her face darted upward. Her mouth met his in a grotesque parody of a passion-laden kiss.
"Oh, bad bunny!" she admonished herself in mock reproach. He stopped, gazing at her from beneath bent brows.
"You hated that, didn't you?" she said.