Howat said at last:
"Are you still so angry at life, at yourself?"
"No," she replied; "I slept that foolishness away. I must have sounded
like a character in _The Lying Valet._" Her present mood obscurely
troubled him; he infinitely preferred her in the pale crumpled silk and
candle light of the evening before. "I wish I could tell you what I
feel," he said moodily.
"Why not?" she replied. "It's the most amusing thing possible. You
advance and I seem to retreat; you reach forward and grasp--my fan, a
handful of petticoat; you protest and sulk--"
"Perhaps in Vauxhall," he interrupted her savagely, "but not here, not
like that, not with me. This is not a gavotte. I didn't want it; I tried
to get away; but it, you, had me in a breath. At once it was all over.
God knows what it is. Call it love. It isn't a thing under a hedge, I
tell you that, for an hour. It's stronger than anything else that will
ever touch me, it will last longer.... Like falling into a river.
Perhaps I'm different, a black Penny, but what other men take like
water, a woman, is brandy for me. I'm--I'm not used to it. I haven't
wanted Kate here and Mary there; but only you. I've got to have you," he
said with a marked simplicity. "I've got to, or there will be a bad
smash.
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