She leaned on the gate, hatefully smiling at him. Peter felt he must turn and run from her eyes, or that he must answer them. He moved quickly towards her, but she did not stir. He gripped her by the arm, looked deliberately into her face, then bent and kissed her. She remained quite still, seeming merely to wait and to suffer. She neither retreated nor responded. Passion died utterly in Peter at the touch of her smiling lips. He stood away from her, brutal and chill. "You asked me to do that," he said. Still she smiled, betraying no sign that anything had occurred. "You must help me to find the rabbits," she said, looking away at last towards the warren. "We're losing the light." There was a suspicion of the fine lady in her manner, assumed to deride him. They hunted among the bracken. Peter found the dead rabbits, and they moved silently up the hill. At the garden gate they paused while he handed over his burden. Her face still kept the maddening expression of the moment when he had kissed her. But Peter's eyes now blazed back at her in wrath, and her look changed to one of slyly affected terror. "Are you going to kiss me again?" she asked. "Not here," Peter roughly answered. "This is where you sing. I saw you here yesterday evening." A look of angry suspicion flashed into her eyes and passed. "Men are very rude and sudden," she said. "Why do you sing in the dark?" "I sing for company," she answered. She passed through the gate; then turned, for a moment, hesitating: "You don't tell tales?" she abruptly asked. "No." "The man you saw last night," she suggested. "I did not see him." "He will not come again. Not yet." "It is nothing to me," said Peter indifferently. "Indeed?" she retorted. "I thought you asked why I sing in the dark." Peter kept his eyes sullenly fixed on the ground, making no answer. She shut the gate. "Do you really want to know why I sing in the dark?" Peter's silence covered a wish to kill this creature. There was a long silence; and when at last he looked up, her eyes were again mischievously playing him. On meeting his look of resentment and dislike, she inconsequently asked: "Have you found a piece of cherry-coloured ribbon?" Peter flung up his hands, and turned away into the garden. She had no need to see that he was cursing her in the shelter of the trees. She went towards the house crooning the song which was now intolerable to Peter. XXIII