Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/221

 a crack like a pistol shot. He jumped away, with a laughing cry of protest.

"A shrew!" he cried. "A termagant, Prince Georges!"

In another moment she would have been gone, but the elder officer was not to be denied.

"No, just a woman!" he corrected. "A tempestuous maid, to be tamed, Charles! Not so fast, little one!" And he caught her by the arm.

She wheeled upon him furiously, with a threatening hand; but his own closed about her wrist, holding her helpless the while he drew her steadily toward him.

"But one!" he pretended to beg. "But one little kiss, Mistress Delphine!"

"This has gone about far enough, messieurs," O'Rourke interposed, judging it time. For it is one thing to kiss a pretty girl yourself, and quite another to stand by and watch a stranger kiss her regardless of her will.

So he came down toward the group slowly, with a protesting palm upraised.

But the prince gave him hardly a glance; he was intent upon the business of the moment. "Kick this fellow out, Charles," he cried contemptuously, relaxing nothing of his hold upon the girl. And then, to her: "Come, Mam'selle Delphine, but a single kiss—"

"No!" she cried. "No, messieurs!"

There was a terror in her tone that set O'Rourke's blood to boiling. He forgot himself, forgot the danger of his position—that danger of which he had been so lately apprised by the girl herself. He laid a hand upon the fellow's collar, with no attempt at gentleness, and another upon his wrist. A second later the prince was sprawling in the sand upon the floor.