Part 49 (1/2)
In Hal Surtaine's arms she was playing for another stake. So intent had she been upon her purpose that the guerdon of the modern Venus Victrix, the declaration of the lover, was held in the background of her mind.
For a swift, bewildering moment, she felt his lips upon hers, the gentlest, the tenderest pressure, instantly relaxed: then the sudden knowledge of him for what he was, a loyal and chivalrous gentleman thus beguiled, burned her with a withering and intolerable shame.
Simultaneously she felt her heart go out to him as never yet had it gone to any man, and in that secret shock to her maidenhood, the coquette in her waned and the woman waxed.
She drew back, quivering, aghast. With all the force of this new and tumultuous emotion, she hoped for her own defeat: yearned over him that he should refuse that for which she had unworthily pressed. Yet, such is the perversity of that strange struggle against the great surrender, that she gathered every power of her s.e.x to gain the dreaded victory. By an effort she commanded her voice, releasing herself from his arms.
”Wait. Don't speak to me for a minute,” she said hoa.r.s.ely.
”But I must speak, now,--dear, dearest.”
”Am--am I that to you?” The feline in her caught desperately at the opportunity.
”Always. From the first.”
”But--you forgot.”
”Let me atone with the rest of my life for that treason.” He laughed happily.
”You keep your promise, then, to the little girl?” At her feet lay the galley proof. Birdlike she darted down upon it, seized, and tore it half across. ”No: you do it,” she commanded, thrusting it into his hand.
No longer was he master of himself. The kiss had undermined him. ”Must I?” he said.
Victorious and aghast, she yet smiled into his face. ”I knew I could believe in you,” she cried. ”You're a true knight, after all. I declare you my Knight-Editor. No well-equipped journalistic partners.h.i.+p should be without one.”
Perhaps had the phrase been different, Hal might have yielded. So narrow a margin of chance divides the paths of honor and dishonor, to mortals groping dimly through the human maze. But the words were an echo to wake memory. Rugged, harsh, and fine the face of McGuire Ellis rose before Hal. He heard the rough voice, with its undertone of affection beneath the jocularity of the rather feeble pun, and it called him back like a trumpet summons to the loyalty which he had promised to the men of the ”Clarion.” He slipped the half-torn paper into his pocket.
”I can't do it, Esme.”
”You--can't--do--it?”
”No.” Finality was in the monosyllable.
She looked into his leveled and quiet eyes, and knew that she had lost.
And the demon of perversity, raging, stung her to its purposes.
”After this, you tell me that you can't, you won't?”
”Dearest! You're not going to let it make a difference in our love for each other.”
”_Our_ love! You go far, and fast.”
”Do I go too far, since you have let me kiss you?”
”I didn't,” she cried.
”Then you meant nothing by it?”
She shrugged her shoulders. ”You are trying to take advantage of a position which you forced,” she said coldly.