Part 60 (1/2)
His disappointment coaxed him. He groaned:
”_Ach Gott_, I am so lunly. My own people doand trust me. These Yenkees also not. I get no chence to proof how I loaf my _Vaterland_.
But the time comes soon, and I must make patience. _Eile mit Weile!_”
”You'd better tell me what's on your mind,” Mamise suggested, but he shook his head. The car rolled into the gloom of the park, a gloom rather punctuated than diminished by the street-lamps. Mamise realized that she could not extort Nicky's secret from him by a.s.serting her own dignity.
She wondered how to persuade him, and found no ideas except such silly schemes as were suggested by her memory of the vampire picture. She hated the very pa.s.sage of such thoughts through her mind, but they kept returning, with an insistent idea that a patriotic vampire might accomplish something for her country as Delilah and Judith had ”vamped” for theirs. She had never seen a vampire exercise her fascinations in a fur coat in a dark automobile, but perhaps the dark was all the better for her purpose.
At any rate, she took the dare her wits presented her, and after a struggle with her own mutinous muscles she put out her hand and sought Nicky's, as she cooed:
”Come along, Nicky, don't be so cantankerous.”
His hand registered the surprise he felt in the fervor of its clutch:
”But you are so colt!”
She insinuated, ”You couldn't expect me to make love to you the very first thing, could you?”
”You mean you do like me?”
Her hands wringing his told the lie her tongue refused. And he, encouraged and determined to prove his rating with her, flung his arm about her again and drew her, resisting only in her soul, close to him.
CHAPTER II
But when his lips hunted hers she hid them in her fur collar; and he, imputing it to coquetry, humored her, finding her delicate timidity enhancing and inspiring. He chuckled:
”You shall kiss me yet.”
”Not till you have told me what you sent for me for.”
”No, feerst you must give me one to proof your good fate--your good face--” He was trying to say ”good faith.”
She was stubborn, but he was more obstinate still, and he had the advantage of the secret.
And so at last she sighed ”All right,” and put up her cheek to pay the price. His arms tightened about her, and his lips were not content with her cheek. He fought to win her lips, but she began to tear off her gloves to scratch his eyes out if need be for release.
She was revolted, and she would have marred his beauty if he had not let her go. Once freed, she regained her self-control, for the sake of her mission, and said, with a mock seriousness:
”Now, be careful, or I won't listen to you at all.”
Sighing with disappointment, but more determined than ever to make her his, he said:
”Feerst I must esk you, how is your feelink about Chermany?”
”Just as before.”
”Chust as vich 'before'? Do you loaf Chermany or hate?”
She was permitted to say only one thing. It came hard: