"Now, dear," he continued, "It's time you went. You'll be wanted at the Plaza--and they mustn't think I'm keeping you up here, making love to you!"
She tossed her head back, and her eyes flashed almost angrily.
"There's no danger of that!" she said, with a little suppressed tremor in her throat like the sob of a nightingale at the close of its song.
"Isn't there?" and putting his arm round her, he drew her close to himself and looked full in her eyes--"Manella--there WAS!--a moment ago!"
She remained still and passive in his arms--hardly daring to breathe, so rapt was she in a sudden ecstasy, but he could feel the wild beating of her heart against his own.
"A moment ago!" he repeated, in a half whisper. "A moment ago I could have made such desperate love to you as would have astonished myself!--and YOU! And I should have regretted it ever afterwards--and so would you!"
The struggling emotion in her found utterance.
"No, no--not I!" she said, in quick little passionate murmurs--"I could not regret it!--If you loved me for an hour it would be the joy of my life-time!--You might leave me,--you might forget!--but that would not take away my pride and gladness! You might kill me--I would die gladly if it saved YOUR life!--ah, you do not understand love--not the love of Manella!"
And she lifted her face to his--a face so lovely, so young, so warm with her soul's inward rapture that its glowing beauty might have made a lover of an anchorite. But with Roger Seaton the impulses of passion were brief--the momentary flame had gone out in vapour, and the spirit of the anchorite prevailed. He looked at the dewy red lips, delicately parted like rose petals--but he did not kiss them, and the clasp of his arms round her gradually relaxed.
"Hush, hush Manella!" he said, with a mild kindness, which in her overwrought state was more distracting than angry words would have been--"Hush! You talk foolishness--beautiful foolishness--all women do when they set their fancies on men. It is nature, of course,--YOU think it is love, but, my dear girl, there is no such thing as love! There!--now you are cross!" for she drew herself quickly away from his hold and stood apart, her eyes sparkling, her breast heaving, with the air of a goddess enraged,--"You are cross because I tell you the truth---"