Shall we say good-by
here and now? Truly I am sorry."
She had risen, and he could find no words to stay her.
It seemed that the battle to possess her was over, and
that he, had lost. Her desire for his friendship had all
the mockery of freedom in it to him--in the agony of the
moment it insulted him. With an effort he controlled
himself--there should be no more of the futility of words.
He must see the last of her some time--let it be now,
then. He bent his head over the slender hand he held,
brought his lips to it, and then, with sudden passion,
kissed it hotly again and again, seeking the warm,
uncovered little spot above the fastening. Elfrida snatched
it away with a little shiver at the contact, a little
angry shiver of surprised nerves. He looked at her
piteously, struggling for a word, for any word to send
away her repulsion, to bring her back to the mood of the
moment before. But he could not find it; he seemed to
have drifted hopelessly from her, to have lost all his
reckonings.
"Well?" she said. She was held there partly by her sense
of pity and partly by her desire to see the last, the
very last of it.
"Go!" he returned, with a shrinking of pain at the word,
"I cannot.
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