Part 99 (1/2)
”The devil gets into me when I have to talk to Gertrude.”
She put her arm lightly and shyly about him.
”Do you mind?” she said.
”No, Jinny, I rather like it.”
Her arms tightened ever so little.
”It gives you, doesn't it, an agreeable sense of impropriety at your own fireside?”
She did something to his hair which made him look unlike himself or any Brodrick.
”Supposing,” she said, ”you repulse me? Could you repulse me?”
”No, Jinny; I don't think I ever could.”
”What, not this outrageous hussy, flinging herself at your head, and rumpling your nice collar?”
She let him go that she might look at him and see how he really took it.
He drew her and held her close to him in arms that trembled violently, while her lips brushed his with skimming, fugitive kisses, and kisses that lingered a moment in their flight.
”Do you like the way I make love?” she said. ”And do you like my gown and the way I do my hair?”
His voice shook. ”Jinny, why aren't you always like this? Why aren't you always adorable?”
”I can't be anything--always. Don't you adore me in my other moods?”
”Can you,” said he, ”adore a little devil when it teases?”
”I never tease you when you're tired.”
”No, but I'm sometimes tired when you tease me. You are, darling, just a little bit exhausting for one man.”
”Yes,” said Jinny complacently; ”I can exhaust you. But you can never, never exhaust me. There's always more where I came from.”
”The trouble is, Jinny, that I can't always make you out. I never know where I am with you.”
”But, my dear, think of having to live with a woman whom you _had_ made out. Think of knowing exactly what she's going to do before she does it, and antic.i.p.ating all her conversation!”
”Think,” said he, ”of living with a woman and never knowing precisely whether she's your wife or not your wife.”
”But it solves all the matrimonial problems--how to be the exemplary father of a family and yet to slip the noose and be a bachelor again--how to break the seventh commandment----”
”Jinny!”
”The seventh commandment and yet be faithful to your marriage vows--how to obtain all the excitement of polygamy, all the relief of the divorce court without the bother and the scandal and the expense. Why can't you look at it in that light?”
”Perhaps, Jinny, because I'm not polygamous.”