I drew out my hat-pins and removed my hat. At the same moment my husband removed my sables and cloak, and as he did so he put his arms about me, and held me close to him.
I shuddered. I tried not to, but I could not help it. My husband laughed again, and said:
"Not got over it yet, little woman? Perhaps that's only because you are not quite used to me."
Still laughing he pulled me still closer to him, and putting one of his hands under my chin he kissed me on the mouth.
It will be difficult and perhaps it will be ridiculous to say how my husband's first kiss shocked me. My mouth felt parched, I had a sense of intense disgust, and before I was quite aware of what I was doing I had put up both hands to push him off.
"Come, come, this is going too far," he said, in a tone that was half playful, half serious. "It was all very well in the automobile; but here, in your own rooms, you know. . . ."
He broke off and laughed again, saying that if my modesty only meant that nobody had ever kissed me before it made me all the more charming for him.
I could not help feeling a little ashamed of my embarrassment, and crossing in front of my husband I seated myself in a chair before the fire. He looked after me with a smile that made my heart tremble, and then, coming behind my chair, he put his arms about my shoulders and kissed my neck.
A shiver ran through me. I felt as if I had suffered a kind of indecency. I got up and changed my place. My husband watched me with the look of a man who wanted to roar with laughter. It was the proud and insolent as well as passionate look of one who had never so much as contemplated resistance.
"Well, this is funny," he said. "But we'll see presently! We'll see!"