"Would it?" she asked, with a provocative glance at his face.
"Wouldn't it? Like this." He closed his arm round her and tried to draw her to him.
"Oh, Mr. Gage, you don't mean it," she protested, holding back.
"Come!" he said. "One kiss."
"Oh, no. It wouldn't be right," she still objected. Then she sighed. "Poor Jack!"
"Ah, poor fellow," Peckover said, with a hardly suppressed grin. "Poor old Sharnbrook."
"He is very fond of me," she said, regretfully. "But of course if I can't care for him as much as I ought to—I don't know what the poor fellow will do."
"Give me something handsome, I hope," was Peckover's thought. "Ethel," he whispered, and this time did get something like a kiss.
"Percy, it is wrong of you," she murmured.
"I know it is," he admitted, drawing in a breath as of pain. "Poor old Sharnbrook; and he thinks I'm his friend. He'll never give you up," he added with conviction.