He was drawing her closer and closer to him. Passion, loosened, freed, rocking the man to the soul, was in eyes and face, in the half parted lips, in the short, quick, panting breath. And for a moment, fascinated, she was lifeless; then with all her strength she wrenched and strove to free herself.
"You would not _dare_!" she gasped. "You would not--"
"Dare!"--the word was a wild, hollow laugh. "Dare! Does a man dare to save his soul from torment? See--your lips! Your lips! Ah, God--your lips!"
She was his--_his_! She was in his arms, crushed to him! His--as his mad desire had bade him crush her in his arms long since in that other life in Bernay-sur-Mer; his--as he had dreamed of crushing her in his arms, of crushing her ravishing form close to him in the dreams of the days and nights, every day and night since then. It was all blind madness, a delirium of ecstasy. How warm and hot those lips of hers from which his soul was drinking! God, how she struggled! But her lips--her lips were his--his to rain his kisses of passionate thirst upon--and upon her face, and upon her eyes, and upon her hair. If only she would not struggle so, that he might smother his face, bury it in the intoxicating fragrance of that hair!
She beat at him with her fists. He could not hold her still. She was strong, strong as some young lioness. They were swaying around the room, now this way, new that--and now through the portières into the salon. She made no cry--how could she cry?--he strangled the cries unborn upon her lips with his kisses! Ah, he had her now--she was passive at last--her head was bent far back in his arms. Yes, now--now! To feel the life, the heart throb, the pulse of that lithe form against his own--to hold his lips to hers in a kiss long as all eternity--to--
And then in a numbed, blank way he was standing back and staring at her. Footsteps, laughter, voices were coming from the street outside, coming up the steps--and, where it had seemed that her strength was gone, in a paroxysm of terror, of desperation, she had torn herself away from him. And now--yes--her face was as white as death itself. What made it like that? What had happened? He passed his hand dazedly across his eyes.