I
think you're delicious, splendid, and I want to know."

He shifted his position, putting one arm about her waist, pulling her
close to him, looking into her eyes. With the other he held her free
arm. Suddenly he covered her mouth with his and then kissed her
cheeks. "You care for me, don't you? What did you mean by saying you
might come, if you didn't?"

He held her quite firm, while Aileen struggled. It was a new sensation
this--that of the other man, and this was Polk Lynde, the first
individual outside of Cowperwood to whom she had ever felt drawn. But
now, here, in her own room--and it was within the range of
possibilities that Cowperwood might return or the servants enter.

"Oh, but think what you are doing," she protested, not really disturbed
as yet as to the outcome of the contest with him, and feeling as though
he were merely trying to make her be sweet to him without intending
anything more at present--"here in my own room! Really, you're not the
man I thought you were at all, if you don't instantly let me go. Mr.
Lynde! Mr. Lynde!" (He had bent over and was kissing her). "Oh, you
shouldn't do this! Really! I--I said I might come, but that was far
from doing it. And to have you come here and take advantage of me in
this way! I think you're horrid. If I ever had any interest in you, it
is quite dead now, I can assure you. Unless you let me go at once, I
give you my word I will never see you any more. I won't! Really, I
won't! I mean it! Oh, please let me go! I'll scream, I tell you! I'll
never see you again after this day! Oh--" It was an intense but useless
struggle.

Coming home one evening about a week later, Cowperwood found Aileen
humming cheerfully, and yet also in a seemingly deep and reflective
mood. She was just completing an evening toilet, and looked young and
colorful--quite her avid, seeking self of earlier days.

"Well," he asked, cheerfully, "how have things gone to-day?" Aileen,
feeling somehow, as one will on occasions, that if she had done wrong
she was justified and that sometime because of this she might even win
Cowperwood back, felt somewhat kindlier toward him. "Oh, very well,"
she replied. "I stopped in at the Hoecksemas' this afternoon for a
little while. They're going to Mexico in November. She has the
darlingest new basket-carriage--if she only looked like anything when
she rode in it. Etta is getting ready to enter Bryn Mawr. She is all
fussed up about leavi