He kept her long enough to ask “But are you mine?”

“Yes,” said Isabel, sighing.

“This is a grudging gift, Isabel.”

“Oh no,” she whispered, “not grudging.  All my heart:  all of me.  Only don’t hold me, I’m still afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Yes:  now are you triumphant?” She escaped.

“Will you sit down in a chair, you sprite, and let me kneel at your ladyship’s feet?”

“No—­yes—­No, you too sit down.”  Then as Lawrence, enchained, relapsed into the deep easy chair by the fire, she came behind and leant over him, wreathing her arms over his shoulders.  “There:  now lie still:  so:  is that cosy for you?  Now will you go to sleep?”

“Circe . . .”

“You don’t feel as though you were going to sleep.”

“Mon Dieu!” Lawrence murmured under his breath.

“Don’t say that,” her voice was so soft that it was like the voice of his own heart speaking to him, “it isn’t a proper reply to make when a lady says she loves you.”

“Oh! provided that you do love me—!”

She took his temples between her fingertips and again her enchanting caress brushed his lips.  Lawrence lay helpless.  It was like receiving the caresses of a fairy:  a delight and a torment, a serenity and a flame.  “I love you.  I will marry you.  I shall be a most exacting wife, ‘December when I wed.’  Very soon you’ll wish you had never set eyes on me.  You’ll have to marry Val too and all the family.”  Her long lashes were fluttering against his cheek.  “As you’re thirty-six and I’m only nineteen, you’ll have to be very docile or I shall tell you you’re ungenerous.”

“Presuming on my income, as you said—­was it last night?”

“When you were free.  Does it seem so long ago?” She gave a little laugh, airy and sweet.  “Oh poor Benedict!  Would you like to cry off?  Let me see:  you may scratch any time before I tell Val, which will be when he comes in at five o’clock.  Now then?”

This mention of Val was like a dash of cold water, and Lawrence tried to rouse himself.  “Will you be serious for half a second, you incarnation of mischief?”

“No—­yes—­no, I don’t want to be serious,” she turned in his arms and the Isabel of last night pierced him with her dark, humid, brilliant eyes.  “I want to forget.  Make me forget!”

“Forget what?”

“Other women.”

“There are no other women, Isabel.”

“There have been.—­Lawrence!” the scent of the honeysuckle pinned into her blouse seemed to narcotize all his senses with its irresistible sweetness, “you will be true to me, won’t you?  You won’t love other women now?  Say you never wanted to kiss any of them so much as—­ Oh!” Drunk with her Circean cup, Hyde was more than willing to convince her, but in a fashion of his own.  Isabel gave a little sigh and faded out of his clasp:  he tried to seize her but she was gone, leaving only the scent of bruised petals and the memory of a silken contact.  “You’re so—­so stormy,” the gossamer voice mocked him with its magic of youth and gaiety.  “Val says—­”