Oh, Victor
dearest!" she added, stretching out two rounded, glowing arms in a
sort of half-timid desperation and clasping them round my neck,
while mine still held her heaving waist, "love now, and win your
name by-and-by"
There was delirium in my brain. The whole woman's form swam before
my sight. My arms locked themselves violently round the yielding,
pulsating waist.
"I would if I could," I muttered, and that was as much as I could
say.
"You can," she urged in a soft, desperate voice. "Why not? I can't
believe you love me if you let me go back now."
"I can't believe you love me if you urge me to do what I think is
dishonourable."
Her arms dropped from my neck.
"Oh, it is a mistake," she said.
"Perhaps so."
We had both risen. The floor seemed to bend beneath my feet. I felt
her pulses still beating against my arms. I looked at her. Our eyes
met, and the gaze seemed locked, fixed, and we neither of us could
transfer it. My throat seemed rigid, dry as a desert; her voice was
choked, suffocated in tears. But "Kiss me, at least; oh, kiss me!"
was written on the whole imploring face, on the wildly quivering
lips, in the burning, distracted eyes. But what use? Rather such a
kiss, here, now, might bring an irremediable loss. In any case, the
pain of parting after would be ten times intensified for us both.
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