Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/182

 against hers, twining his arms about her, struggling to join his lips to hers.

"You're fresh and tender," he gasped. "I want you. Now . . . now. . . ." He kept on repeating—"Now—" as they struggled. He seemed beside himself with passion. Could this be the sickly boy Perkin? Why, his arms were like steel. His head like a darting snake's.

Delight was filled with terror, as a doe that, having come to drink at a peaceful stream, finds herself attacked by some fierce creature of the forest.

"Let me go! Let me go! I'll scream."

Perkin laughed, his lips hot against hers. "Scream then. Go ahead, scream."

He said no more and she ceased to struggle, lying quietly in his arms, her eyes half-closed. She felt faint under the fury that blazed in his. She was conscious that his cheek and chin were beardless as a girl's, that he smelled of straw, of fruit, of hot human flesh. She lay so quietly that the boy laughed again in triumph.

"I said you'd find out some day which of us is the strongest. Now you know, eh?" He drew his head backward, with that snakelike gesture. He wanted to look into her face just a few inches below his, lying there, flushed, terrified, weak.

"Now you know, eh? Say, I've been dreaming of when I'd do this for a month. From the first minute I set eyes on you. As soon as I knowed you was to be my wife."

Her eyes were wide-open now, tragic; her clenched hands against his breast.

"Your wife, Perkin!"

"Well, that's what Fergussen brung you here for, isn't it? Aw, don't pretend you didn't know!"

"Fergussen. But why—why? He brought me here