"Kiss me," he said.
She kissed him--without hesitation and without warmth.
"Why do you look at me so?" he demanded.
"I can't understand."
"Understand what?"
"Why you should wish to kiss me when you love another woman. What would she say if she knew?"
"I'm sure I don't know. And I rather think I don't care. You are the only person on earth that interests me."
"Then why are you marrying?"
"Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about ourselves." He clasped her passionately, kissed her at first with self-restraint, then in a kind of frenzy. "How can you be so cruel!" he cried. "Are you utterly cold?"
"I do not love you," she said.
"Why not?"
"There's no reason. I--just don't. I've sometimes thought perhaps it was because you don't love me."
"Good God, Dorothy! What do you want me to say or do?"
"Nothing," replied she calmly. "You asked me why I didn't love you, and I was trying to explain.
I don't want anything more than I'm getting. I am content--aren't you?"
"Content!" He laughed sardonically. "As well ask Tantalus if he is content, with the water always before his eyes and always out of reach. I want you --all you have to give. I couldn't be content with less."
"You ought not to talk to me this way," she reproved gently, "when you are engaged."
He flung her hand into her lap. "You are making a fool of me. And I don't wonder. I've invited it.
Surely, never since man was created has there been such another ass as I." He drew her to her feet, seized her roughly by the shoulders. "When are you coming to your senses?" he demanded.
"What do you mean?" she inquired, in her child-like puzzled way.
He shook her, kissed her violently, held her at arm's length. "Do you think it wise to trifle with me?" he asked. "Don't your good sense tell you there's a limit even to such folly as mine?"
"What IS the matter?" she asked pathetically.
"What do you want? I can't give you what I haven't got to give."
"No," he cried. "But I want what you HAVE got to give."
She shook her head slowly. "Really, I haven't, Mr. Norman."
He eyed her with cynical amused suspicion. "Why did you call me MR. Norman just then? Usually you don't call me at all. It's been weeks since you have called me Mister. Was your doing it just then one of those subtle, adroit, timely tricks of yours?"
She was the picture of puzzled innocence. "I don't understand," she said.
"Well--perhaps you don't," said he doubtfully.
"At any rate, don't call me Mr. Norman. Call me Fred."
"I can't. It isn't natural. You seem Mister to me. I always think of you as Mr. Norman."
"That's it. And it must stop!"
She smiled with innocent gayety. "Very well--Fred. . . . Fred. . . . Now that I've said it, I don't find it strange." She looked at him with an expression between appeal and mockery. "If you'd only let me get acquainted with you. But you don't. You make me feel that I've got to be careful with you--that I must be on my guard. I don't know against what--for you are certainly the very best friend that I've ever had--the only real friend."
He frowned and bit his lip--and felt uncomfortable, though he protested to himself that he was simply irritated at her slyness. Yes, it must be slyness.
"So," she went on, "there's no REASON for being on guard. Still, I feel that way." She looked at him with sweet gravity. "Perhaps I shouldn't if you didn't talk about love to me and kiss me in a way I feel you've no right to."
Again he laid his hands upon her shoulders. This time he gazed angrily into her eyes. "Are you a fool?
Or are you making a fool of me?" he said. "I can't decide which."
"I certainly am very foolish," was her apologetic answer. "I don't know a lot of things, like you and father. I'm only a girl."
And he had the maddening sense of being baffled again--of having got nowhere, of having demonstrated afresh to himself and to her his own weakness where she was concerned. What unbelievable weakness! Had there ever been such another case? Yes, there must have been. How little he had known of the possibil-ities of the relations of men and women--he who had prided himself on knowing all!
She said, "You are going to marry?"
"I suppose so," replied he sourly.
"Are you worried about the expense? Is it costing you too much, this helping father? Are you sorry you went into it?"
He was silent.
"You are sorry?" she exclaimed. "You feel that you are wasting your money?"
His generosity forbade him to keep up the pretense that might aid him in his project. "No," he said hastily. "No, indeed. This expense--it's nothing."
He flushed, hung his head in shame before his own weakness, as he added, in complete surrender, "I'm very glad to be helping your father."
"I knew you would be!" she cried triumphantly.
"I knew it!" And she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him.
"That's better!" he said with a foolishly delighted laugh. "I believe we are beginning to get acquainted."
"Yes, indeed. I feel quite different already."
"I hoped so. You are coming to your senses?"
"Perhaps. Only--" She laid a beautiful white pleading hand upon his shoulder and gazed earnestly into his eyes--"please don't frighten me with that talk --and those other kisses."
He looked at her uncertainly. "Come round in your own way," he said at last. "I don't want to hurry you. I suppose every bird has its own way of dropping from a perch."
"You don't like my way?" she inquired.
It was said archly but also in the way that always made him vaguely uneasy, made him feel like one facing a mystery which should be explored cautiously. "It is graceful," he admitted, with a smile since he could not venture to frown. "Graceful--but slow."
She laughed--and he could not but feel that the greater laughter in her too innocent eyes was directed at him. She talked of other things--and he let her--charmed, yet cursing his folly, his slavery, the while.
