“But you——”
Phryné shook her curly head.
“I rather liked the French boy, but I do not believe anything that a Frenchman says to a girl; and Harry, the other, was handsome, but so silly....”
“So you did not love either of them?”
“Of course not.”
“But,” said Dillon, and impulsively he swept her into his arms, “you are going to love me.”
One quick upward glance she gave, but instantly lowered her eyes and withheld her bewitching face from him.
“Am I?” she whispered. “You are so conceited.”
But as she spoke the words he kissed her, and she surrendered sweetly, nestling her head against his shoulder for a moment. Then, leaping back, bright-eyed and blushing, she turned and ran like a startled fawn across the terrace and into the house.
He saw no more of her until dinner-time, and spent the interval in a kind of suspended consciousness that was new and perturbing. Within him life pulsed at delirious speed, but the universe seemed to have slowed upon its course so that each hour became as two. Throughout dinner, Phryné was deliciously shy to the point of embarrassment; and Dillon, who several times surprised the bird-eyes of Dr. Kassimere studying the girl’s face, detained his host, and being a young man of orderly mind, formally asked his consent to an engagement.