Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/80

70 "You wonderful little wildcat!" he murmured, as he pinned her elbows close to her sides and drew her, smothered and helpless, in under the wing of his shoulder.

For a moment or two she fought with all that was left of her strength, writhing and twisting and panting, struggling to free her pinioned arms. Then she ceased, abruptly, devastated, not so much by her helplessness as by the ignominy of her efforts. She went limp in his arms as he forced back her head, and with his arm encircling her shoulders, kissed her on the mouth.

He stopped suddenly, perplexed by her passiveness, even suspecting for a moment that she might have fainted. But he found himself being surveyed with a tight-lipped and narrow-eyed intentness which shot a vague trouble through his triumph. He even let his arms drop, in bewilderment, though the drunkenness had not altogether gone out of his eyes.

She was wiping her mouth with her handkerchief, with a white look of loathing on her face. She was still mopping her