"If I want to flee now," she thought, "I shall have to throw myself out
of the window."
"Don't you intend to budge until to-morrow morning?" he said. "If so,
I'll engage your services as a clothes horse."
A smirking calm seemed to have come over him, as if he were at last sure
of his possession.
He threw himself in a corner of the sofa, lighted a cigarette, and
looked at her with a connoisseur's gaze, while she slowly divested
herself of her cloak and drew out her hatpin with hesitating fingers.
A knock at the door.
A waiter entered bearing a tray with cold dishes and a silver-throated
bottle.
"Champagne again?" asked Lilly, who still had a slightly sickish
feeling.
"The very thing," he said, pouring a foaming jet into the goblets. "It
gives a little girl courage to dedicate the lovely nightgown waiting for
her in the trunk."
She clinked glasses with him in obedience to his demand, but scarcely
moistened her lips with the wine.
He jokingly took her to task, and she pled:
"I shouldn't like to be drunk on such a sacred evening."
Her answer seemed to gratify him immensely. He burst into a noisy laugh,
and observed:
"All the better, all the better!"
He attempted to draw her down to him, but contact with him made her
uneasy, and she eluded his grasp with a quick movement.
"You said you wanted me to hunt for the nightgown."
She knelt at the trunk, which she herself had packed the night before,
lifted the trays out, and from near the bottom fetched out the nebulous,
lacy creation, which was one of the many things he had bought her before
the wedding.
She looked about for a retreat, but nowhere on earth was there escape
from that pair of eyes which swimming in desire followed her every
movement.
Hesitating, faint-hearted she stood there, her fingers hanging to her
collar, which she did not venture to unfasten.
Growing impatient he jumped up.
He was about to seize her, but the look she gave him was so full of
despair that a knightly impulse bade him desist.
To account for his action he picked up a roll of paper that had dropped
from the trunk while she had been rummaging for the nightgown.
Lilly saw something white gleam between his dark fingers.
"The Song of Songs!" occurred to her.
With a cry she jumped on him and tried to snatch away the roll. But his
hand held it as in a vice.
He defended himself with ease, laughing all the time.
The thought that the secret of her life had strayed into alien hands,
deprived her of her senses. She cried, she screamed, she beat him with
her fists.
The matter began to look suspicious. A doubt as to the virginity of her
soul, yea, even of her body, began to assail him.
"One moment, little girl," he said. "There are no nooks or crannies for
hiding in now. Either you'll kindly let me see what this is without
further delay, or I'll take you between my knees and hold you so fast
you won't be able to move a muscle."
Lilly took to pleading.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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