Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/215

 orange that began laboriously to climb the sky, heavy as if with weeping.

"It looks as if it were afraid of something that it knows it will see," said 'Lola in an awed voice.

Beresford felt her arm touch his shoulder. Was it accidental? he asked himself. With a feeling of exaltation he noticed that she did not withdraw. He made a slight movement, severing the contact as if by accident. He waited breathlessly. Yes, her arm had touched his shoulder again. She—she Something wild and primitive seemed to spring into being within him. Something of the age when men fought for their women and carried them off by brute force. Why did he not carry off this girl? Why was she sitting there beside him if she were not prepared to be carried off? Why did he not clasp her to him and pour incoherent words into her ears, smothering her with kisses, inhaling the sweet perfume of her? Women such as she were won in a riot of physical mastery. She was no mate for the drawing-room wooer. No one would understand her as he had understood her. Other men would Suddenly there came the thought of the Thirty-Nine Articles and he laughed, a short, odd laugh, which seemed to strike the soft night air like a discord. She started, turning to him with eyes dilated a little.

"What—what is the matter?" she enquired with a quick indrawing of breath.