Other
nights she would meet me, but not let me raise her dress. She
would lie on me, on a moonlit night, and her young face in shadow
like a siren's in its frame of hair, merely to kiss me. But what
kisses! Slow, cold kisses changing to clinging, passionate ones.
She would leave my mouth to look around, as if frightened, and
come back, open-mouthed, with a side-contact of lips that brought
out unexpected felicities.
"One night her _fiance_ saw us together, and followed me after I
left her, but on turning a corner I ran. I ridiculed him to her
and despised him. I should have found it difficult to say why.
Another night her brother attacked me, and it would have gone
hard with me, but Annie pulled me in and banged the door. We were
in a friend's house, but her father came around soon and laid a
stick about her shoulders, in my presence. I tried to talk big,
and said something idiotic about being as good a man as her
betrothed, as though my intentions were honorable, which for one
brief moment made Anne look at me, paler faced and changed, such
a strange glance. But he beat her home, enjoying my rage, and she
went away, crying in her hands.
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