If this were to be added to all her other charms—
Katie had always seemed delightfully daring in an innocent sort of way. It seemed now she might be capable of being subtle in a sophisticated way. He had always thought of Katie as romping. A distinguished and quite individual form of romping. She even had a romping imagination. He loved her for her merriness, for her open sunniness. That had been an impersonal love, not very different from the way he might have loved a sister. In fact he had more than once wished Katie were his little sister instead of Wayne's.
He did not wish that now.
She became too fascinating and too desirable in her mysterious new complexity. There was zest in discovering Katie after he had known her so long.
And her eyes and her smile seemed jeering at him for having been such a long while in discovering her.
He wanted to kiss her. That mocking little smile seemed daring him to kiss her. And yet he did not dare to. It seemed part of Katie's lovely new complexity that she could invite and forbid at one and the same time.
Now Zelda could not have done more than the inviting—and so many could invite.
He rose and stood near her. "Katie, you don't mean to marry
Prescott, do you?"
She clapped her hands above her head and laughed like a child immensely tickled about something.
He laughed, too, and then asked to be informed what he was laughing at.