Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/173

 ma'am?' he inquired in a voice of elaborate and dangerous unction.

The girl grew defiant, and her long black eyes snapped.

'Yes.'

'I am much interested.' His thick hands were shaking. 'Lanice, I love you.'

'But it is impossible, considering the way I feel towards you.'

'Would you, would any innocent unmarried woman so kiss one of the opposite sex...if she did not love...was not swept off her feet?'

'I did it by mistake.'

'Ah, but your innermost heart dictated this action.'

'No. I was simply tired of hearing you call me innocent. Because,' she said, 'I am not, Augustus.'

He looked at her and slowly realized that perhaps she was, as he had sometimes feared, spiritually as well as physically her mother's child.

'Not innocent? Why, that is the quality I have always adored in you.'

'What do you know of me? You've never cared to find out what I think or how I feel.'

'Come, sarcasm is not a woman's weapon, especially the woman who is to become my wife.'

There was a touch of rather crude vitality in the poise of his thick body and a threat in the lowered thrust of his head. She almost could have loved him if he had always been like that. She ceased playing with him, and turned towards him fairly.

'I tried to tell you by actions that I am not, never