“Don’t talk. Remember your promise? If you break it, I shall have to go. Miss Wilson has come back for the night and she is very severe, you know.”
He caught the reproving finger and pressed it against his cheek, where the bristly down of a new beard was forming. His eyes gleamed above the crimson cheek-bones.
“Anne, you are beautiful,” he disobeyed. “Anne, I worship you.”
She drew away her hand, and laid it reprovingly upon his laboring chest.
“I shall have to go, I see. Good-night, Alexis.” She bent over him and brushed her lips across his forehead. “May your sleep bring health!” Unshed tears glittered upon her lashes.
He clutched at her skirts baby-wise. “Don’t forget your promise,” he whispered. “To come back when you are ready for bed with your hair down, just like last night?”
A flush swept over the ivory face, leaving it paler than before. “Oh, Alexis, must I?” she pleaded.
His nod was tyrannical.
She returned a few minutes later, swathed in the old-gold saut-de-lit.
“Well, here I am,” she murmured from the threshold, feeling strangely brazen.