"They took him with them," said Lord Bracondale, and he touched the edge
of her dress gently with a wild flower he had picked in the grass, while
into his eyes crept all the passion he felt and into his voice all the
tenderness.
Now if Theodora had ever read La Faute de L'Abbé Mouret she would have
known just what proximity and the spring-time was doing for them both.
But she had not read, and did not know. All she was conscious of was a
wild thrilling of her pulses, an extraordinary magnetic force that
seemed to draw her--draw her nearer--nearer to what? Even that she did
not know or ask herself. Beyond that it was danger, and she must fly
from it.
"I do not want to talk of any of those things to-day," she said,
suddenly dropping her parasol between them. "I only want to laugh and be
amused, and as you were to devise schemes for my happiness, you must
amuse me."
He looked up at her again and he noticed, for all this brave speech,
that her hands were trembling as she clutched the handle of her blue
parasol.
Triumph and joy ran through him. He could afford to wait a little longer
now, since he knew that he must mean something, even perhaps a great
deal, to her.
And so for the next half-hour he played with her, he skimmed over the
surface of danger, he enthralled her fancy, and with every sentence he
threw the glamour of his love around her, and fascinated her soul. All
his powers of attraction--and they were many--were employed for her
undoing.
And Theodora sat as one in a dream.
At last she felt she must wake--must realize that she was not a happy
princess, but Theodora, who must live her dull life--and this--and
this--where was it leading her to?
So she clasped her hands together suddenly, and she said: "But do you know we have grown serious, and I asked you to amuse me,
Lord Bracondale!"
"I cannot amuse you," he said, lazily, "but shall I tell you about my
home, which I should like to show you some day?" And again he began to
caress the farthest edge of her dress with his wild flower. Just the
smallest movement of smoothing it up and down that no one could resent,
but which was disturbing to Theodora. She did not wish him to stop, on
the contrary--and yet-"Yes, I would like to hear of that," she said. "Is it an old, old
house?"