s
to her.

"No, really not!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry, but I had no idea you felt
like that about me."

He caught her arms. His hand was very hot, and she felt it through the
gauze of her sleeve.

She turned back quickly. "Come on," she said, "let's get back to the
house. They'll wonder what on earth we're doing."

He dropped his hand to hers, and pulled on it slightly.

"Listen," he pleaded. "Stop a minute and listen."

She screwed her hand deftly out of his, and drew aside.

"Oh, please leave me alone, Guy!" she cried. "It's no good. I couldn't
dream of it. I'm never going to marry."

Still he persisted incoherently, unattractively, and with the increasing
daring of swelling desire.

"No, I tell you," she ejaculated, laughing a little nervously. "Can't
you take 'no' for an answer? You are not going to annoy me just because
we happen to be alone, are you?"

He dropped his hands to his side, and was silent.

"Now, don't let's say any more about it," said Vanessa, feeling very
much relieved. She had the sound instinct that informed her that this
man's "clean-mindedness" was revolting, and breathed fast and
irregularly at the thought of the danger she imagined she had been in.
If he had kissed her with those uneloquent and untrained lips of his,
impure in their purity, she would never have forgiven herself.

"Look at the moon," she said, as she strode rapidly back to the house.
"It is beginning to wane. I wonder if the weather will change with it."

And so they reached the terrace,--she feeling that she wanted a wash; he
feeling only that he had bungled it, because she was too worldly, too
sophisticated to be natural.

Meanwhile, however, in another part of the grounds, a very much more
subtle, irresistible, and skilful proposal was being pronounced. True,
it was being made by a man who desired at all costs, and in good time,
to secure his achieved success from threatened assault, and who was
therefore a little desperate; but it was also the performance of a
creature who knew his subject, who understood its difficulties, and who
was not hindered by any of those scruples of ignorance and purity which
temper ardour and paralyse daring.

For Malster was in the condition in which a man's desire may truly be
said to have become a physical ache. A feeling of sick longing held his
heart and entrails as in a vise, a sort of cramp of violent tension
stiffened all his tissues. On Leonetta his eyes were fastened