he was proud of Skrebensky in the house. His lounging,
languorous indifference irritated her and yet cast a spell over
her. She knew it was the outcome of a spirit of
laissez-aller combined with profound young vitality. Yet
it irritated her deeply.

Notwithstanding, she was proud of him as he lounged in his
lambent fashion in her home, he was so attentive and courteous
to her mother and to herself all the time. It was wonderful to
have his awareness in the room. She felt rich and augmented by
it, as if she were the positive attraction and he the flow
towards her. And his courtesy and his agreement might be all her
mother's, but the lambent flicker of his body was for herself.
She held it.

She must ever prove her power.

"I meant to show you my little wood-carving," she said.

"I'm sure it's not worth showing, that," said her father.

"Would you like to see it?" she asked, leaning towards the
door.

And his body had risen from the chair, though his face seemed
to want to agree with her parents.

"It is in the shed," she said.

And he followed her out of the door, whatever his feelings
might be.

In the shed they played at kisses, really played at kisses.
It was a delicious, exciting game. She turned to him, her face
all laughing, like a challenge. And he accepted the challenge at
once. He twined his hand full of her hair, and gently, with his
hand wrapped round with hair behind her head, gradually brought
her face nearer to his, whilst she laughed breathless with
challenge, and his eyes gleamed with answer, with enjoyment of
the game. And he kissed her, asserting his will over her, and
she kissed him back, asserting her deliberate enjoyment of him.
Daring and reckless and dangerous they knew it was, their game,
each playing with fire, not with love. A sort of defiance of all
the world possessed her in it--she would kiss him just
because she wanted to. And a dare-devilry in him, like a
cynicism, a cut at everything he pretended to serve, retaliated
in him.

She was very beautiful then, so wide opened, so radiant, so
palpitating, exquisitely vulnerable and poignantly, wrongly,
throwing herself to risk. It roused a sort of madness in him.
Like a flower shaking and wide-opened in the sun, she tempted
him and challenged him, and he accepted the challenge, something
went fixed in him. And under all her laughing, poignant
recklessness was the quiver of tears. That almost sent him mad,
mad with desire, with pa