“Why have you never kissed me since that first night, Basil?”
She did not look at him, and he made no sign that he heard, but she felt the trembling of his limbs. Her throat grew hot and dry, and a horrible anxiety seized her.
“Basil!” she said hoarsely, insisting on an answer.
“Because I didn’t dare.”
She could count now the throbbing of that torturer in her breast, and the cabman seemed to drive as for a wager. They sped along the Embankment, and it was very dark.
“But I wanted you to,” she said fiercely.
“Jenny, don’t let us make fools of ourselves.”
But as though his words were from the mouth only, and a stronger power mastered him, even as he spoke he sought her lips; and because he had resisted so long their sweetness was doubly sweet. With a stifled gasp like a wild beast, she flung her arms about him, and the soft fragrance of her body drove away all thoughts but one: mindless of the passers-by, he pressed her eagerly to his heart. He was mad with her fair, yielding beauty and the passion of her surrender, mad with that never-ending kiss, than which in his whole life he had never known a greater rapture. And his heart trembled like a leaf trembling before the wind.
“Will you come back to my rooms, Jenny?” he whispered.
She did not answer, but drew herself more closely to him. He lifted the trap in the roof of the hansom and told the cabman to drive to the Temple.