He got to his feet and the flapper was
unaccountably standing beside him. It was too dark to see her face, but
he knew that for once she was not looking at him; for once that head was
bent. And then, preposterously, without volition, without foreknowledge,
he was holding her tightly in his arms; holding her tightly and kissing
her with a simple directness that "Napoleon, Man and Lover," could never
have bettered.
There is no record of Napoleon having studied jiu-jitsu.
For one frenzied moment he was out of himself, a mere conquering male,
unthinking, ruthless, exigent. Then the sweet strange touch of her cheek
brought him back to the awful thing he had done. His reason worked with
a lightning quickness. Terrified by his violence she would wrench
herself free and run screaming to the house. And then--it was too
horrible!
He waited, breathless, for retribution. The flapper did not wrench
herself away. Slowly he relaxed the embrace that had made a brute of
him. The flapper had not screamed. She was facing him now, breathless
herself. He put her a little way from him; he wanted her to see it as he
did.
The flapper drew a long and rather catchy breath, then she adjusted a
strand of hair misplaced by his violence.
"I _knew_ it!" she began, in tones surprisingly cool. "I knew it ever so
long ago, from the very first moment!"
He tried to speak, but had no words. His utterance was formless.
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