“Can a man care much for two women at the same time?” he asked in a low voice.
She laughed with slow mockery.
Her faint perfume was wafted to his brain. He knew a besieging of the blood. Slowly he leaned forward, holding her eyes till the mockery faded from them. Then, very deliberately, he kissed her.
“How dare you!” she voiced softly in a kind of wonder not free from resentment. For with all her sensuous appeal the daughter of Joe Powers was not a woman with whom men took liberties.
“By the gods, why shouldn't I dare? We played a game and both of us have lost. You were to beckon and coolly flit, while I followed safely at a distance. Do you think me a marble statue? Do you think me too wooden for the strings of my heart to pulsate? By heaven, my royal Hebe, you have blown the fire in me to life. You must pay forfeit.”
“Pay forfeit?”
“Yes. I'm your servant no longer, but your lover and your master—and I intend to marry you.”
“How ridiculous,” she derided. “Have you forgotten Alice?”
“I have forgotten everything but you—and that I'm going to marry you.”
She laughed a little tremulously. “You had better forget that too. I'm like Alice. My answer is, 'No, thank you, kind sir.'”