Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/330

320 pain, forgot everything but the glory of the sounds he was evoking and their visible reaction upon this girl. The devil was not only in his heart, but in his hand.

Never had Kitty heard such music. To be played to in this manner—directly, with embracing tenderness, with undivided fire—would have melted the soul of Gobseck the money lender; and Kitty was warm-blooded, Irish, emotional. The fiddle called poignantly to the Irish in her. She wanted to go roving with this man; with her hand on his shoulder to walk in the thin air of high places. Through it all, however, she felt vaguely troubled; the instinct of the trap. The sinister and cynical idea which had clandestinely taken up quarters in her mind awoke and assailed her from a new angle, that of youth. Something in her cried out: "Stop! Stop!" But her lips were mute, her body enchained.

Suddenly Hawksley laid aside the fiddle and advanced. He reached down and drew her up. Kitty did not resist him; she was numb with enchantment. He held her close for a second, then kissed her—her hair, eyes, mouth—released her and stepped back, a bantering smile on his lips and cold terror in his heart. The devil who had inspired this phase of the drama now deserted his victim, as he generally does in the face of superior forces.

Kitty stood perfectly still for a full minute, stunned. It was that smile—frozen on his lips—that brought her back to intimacy with cold realities.