"I am grateful. I wanted to see you to tell you that, and how sorry I am—so beastly sorry, George."
Her voice drifted away. It made him want his arms about her, made him want her lips again. The room became a black and restless background for this shadowy, desired, and forbidden figure.
Impulsively he slipped to his knees and placed his head against the side of her chair. Across his hair he fancied a fugitive brushing of fingers. She burst out with something of her former impetuous manner.
"I used to want that! Now you shan't!"
He arose, and she stooped swiftly forward, as if propelled objectively, and, before he realized what she was doing, touched the back of his hand with her lips.
She sprang upright and faced him from the mantel, more afraid than ever, staring at him, her cheeks wet with tears.
"That's all," she whispered. "It's what I wanted to tell you. Please go. We mustn't see each other again."
In the room he was aware only of her, but he knew, in spite of his own blind instinct, that between them was a wall as of transparent and heavy glass against which he would only break his strength.
"Sylvia," he whispered in spite of that knowledge, "I want to touch your lips."
"They've never been anybody else's," she cried in a sudden outburst. "Never could have been. I see that now. That's why I've hated you——"