Forgetful of the metropolitan scene, of those possible eyes and eyes of behind-shutter neighbors and of the fears of their own fair, the two closed in that desire-to-conquer conflict which, from primordial times through the hazy stretch of days-after-to-morrows-and-morrows, ever has been and ever shall be the lust of love. There was no preliminary feinting. From its start the fight promised to go the limit which, in this case, would be the finish.
A suppressed shriek escaped Mrs. Sturgis, then she rushed to her niece and demanded that the two be separated and the scandal of a street brawl before her house averted. Jane did not answer in words, but she threw off the clutch with which her relative was both urging and staying her, and started toward the passion-flaring pair.
Denied his throat hold by queer-question tactics, Harford settled back to a slugging match in which his heavier weight might lend him an advantage. Again, as on the park butte-top in a recent electric-lighted mill, Pape adopted grizzly form.
If any one of the excited group heard, none attended certain regardless utterances with which Irene, the while, had been wooing to win her glare-eyed gift of gratitude. Poised daintily on the curb's edge, she was endeavoring to regale the steer with a whiff of the long-stemmed red roses which she had brought from the house.
"Here bossy, poor old bossy, see what Rene has brought out for you. My _nice_ moo-moo. Oh, don't shake your horns! Why not enjoy the little things in life while you may? C'mon, have a sniff on me!"
Leaning far out, she continued to tease his nostrils with her offering as the two punchers steadied the beast with remindful pulls upon the "strings" which they had about his horns.
"Sook, bossy! That's cow language, if you get me. You're an absolute _dar-rling_ and I know it. You can't scare me off with those mean glances. Understand me, I like 'em fierce. The fiercer the fonder."
Now, it is highly improbable that the beef-brute took her dare or even grasped a word of it; more likely that the fresh scent of the roses rewoke his longing for what he had smelled and striven toward and failed to attain on his first whiff of Central Park. Or perhaps their color was wholly responsible--perhaps it acted as a red flag upon inherited bull instincts.