She looked away from him, turning her profile. Her expression was
inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague
laugh.
"You should have let me alone," he said.
"'The woman tempted me,'" she repeated, still looking away from him.
He said nothing.
"Good night," she nodded, and turned toward the door.
He went with her, falling into step beside her. One arm slipped
around her waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to
the door. He unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward,
and he took a step at the same time which brought her across his
path so closely that contact was unavoidable. And he kissed her.
"Oh," she said. "So you are human after all! I often wondered."
She looked up, trying to laugh, but could not seem to take it as
coolly as she might have wished to.
"Not that a kiss is very important in these days," she continued,
"yet it might interest you to hear that a friend of yours rather
fancies me. He wouldn't like you to do it. But--" She lifted her
blue eyes with faint malice--"What is a woman between friends?"
"Who is he?"
"Jack Graylock."
Drene remained motionless.
"I haven't encouraged him," she said. "Perhaps that is why."
"Why he fancies you?"
"Why he asked me to marry him. It was the only thing he had not
asked."
"He asked that?"
"After he realized it was the only way, I suppose," she said coolly.
Drene took her into his arms and kissed her deliberately on the
mouth. Looking up at him she said: "After all, he is your friend,
isn't he?"
"A friend of many years. But, as you say, what is a woman between
friends?"
"I don't know," said the girl. And, still clasped in his arms, she
bent her head, thoughtfully, considering the question.
And as though she had come to some final conclusion, she raised her
head, lifted her eyes slowly, and her lips, to the man whose arms
enfolded her. It was her answer to his question, and her own.
When she had gone, he went back and stood again by the great window,
watching the cote on a neighboring roof, where the pigeons were
strutting and coquetting in the last rays of the western sun.