They lingered.
Then Peter found himself lifting his arms. He tried to keep them down, but up, up they came—very slowly, he thought.
He caught her shoulders, swung her around, drew her close. It seemed to him afterward, during one of the thousand efforts he made to construct a mental picture of the scene, that she must have been resisting him and that he must have been using his strength; but if this was so it made no difference. Her head was in the hollow' of his arm. He bent down, drew her head up, kissed, as it happened, her nose; forced her face about and at the second effort kissed her lips. If she was struggling—and Peter will never be quite clear on that point—she was unable to resist him. He kissed her again. And then again. A triumphant fury was upon him.
But suddenly it passed. He almost pushed her away from him; left her standing, limp and breathless, by the mantel, while he threw himself on the couch and plunged his face into his hands.
“You'll hate me,” he groaned. “You won't ever speak to me again. You'll think I'm that sort of man, and you'll be right in thinking so. What's worse, you'll believe I thought you were the sort to let me do it. And all the time I love you more than—Oh God, what made me do it! What could I have been thinking of! I was mad!”
Then the room was still.
CHAPTER XII—THE MOMENT AFTER
PETER tried to think. He could not lie there indefinitely with his face in his hands. But he couldn't think. His mind had stopped running.... At last he must face her. He remembered Napoleon. Slowly he lifted his head; got up.