"Because," said Clelia, laughing, "I think she'd like to have you do it.
She'd slay me if she heard me. And she'd slay herself before she'd ever
let you.... And yet--it _is_ odd!--I'm willing to learn how it feels to
be kissed, but I am not in love; and Thusis likes you and won't admit
it:--you've turned my sister's head and she's horribly afraid of you;
and never, never will she let you kiss her. And there you are!"
After a long silence she looked up at me shyly:
"Shall we?" she asked naively.
"I could show you how it's done," said I.
And then, just at the moment when the deed was about to be accomplished,
a shadow fell across the floor. I looked up. Thusis stood there.
Her beautiful face flamed as she met our eyes.
Clelia stood up with a light laugh. "My first lesson!" she exclaimed,
"and already ended before I learned a word of it! Take your young man,
sister! He's quite as disappointing as his solemn friend!"
And she went into the pantry taking with her our empty glasses.
"So _that_ is the sort of man you are," said Thusis calmly.
The utter hopelessness of the situation turned me flippant.
"Yes," said I, "I am a very dangerous, unprincipled man. I'm thoroughly
and hopelessly bad, Thusis. What do you think about me now?"
"What I have always thought about your class,--nothing!" she said in an
even, smiling voice.
"Class!" I repeated, perplexed by the word, and the faint contempt in
her voice.
"Exactly. That is most accurately what I mean--your class in the social
scale, Mr. O'Ryan. And you live--down to it."
"Will you explain," said I, amazed and angry, "what you mean to infer?"
"I don't infer. I am direct and implicit. You behave as might be
expected. Quality demands certain things of itself. Of you, Mr.
O'Ryan, nothing is demanded. And nothing involving quality is
expected.... And I have been a great fool," she added quietly. And
walked out the way she entered, leaving me perplexed and thoroughly
enraged.
And I would not have it left in any such way; and sprang up and overtook
Thusis as she entered the empty living-room.
"What I want to know," said I, "is what you mean by implying that any
social inequality exists between you and me?"
"Between you and your servant?" she inquired mockingly. And tried to
pass me.
"You didn't mean that! You meant something entirely different. Who are
you, Thusis? And I don't care a sou who you are,--_what_ you are! I am
in love with you----"
"--And with my sister?"
"I'm in love with _you_! You know it!"
"I do _not_!"
"You _do_ know it! And it disturbs you----"
My voice shook.
"It leaves me utterly indifferent," she said disdainfully; but her gray
eyes were lifted slowly to mine and the color came into her beautiful
face.
"What sort of man are you!" she demanded. "You see how young my sister
is--how silly and inexperienced! And yet----"
"I'd as soon kiss a healthy kitten," said I. "She's attractive because
she is your sister. Anyway Smith is in love with her----"
"I won't permit it!" cried Thusis. "I'll not tolerate such a thing!"
She clenched her hands; there was a glint of something in her eyes--but
if it came from angry tears they dried before I was sure.
"I've brought this on myself," she said. "I laid myself open to
it--invited familiarity and disrespect from you! The very devil must
have been in me to so utterly forget myself! Now I've got to pay for
it--pay for it in bitter humiliation--witness such a scene as I have
just witnessed--and then stand here and hear you tell me that--that you
are in love with me!--endure what you say----"
Suddenly it became clear to me what Clelia had meant when she said that
Thusis was afraid of me.
"Thusis," said I, "you won't have to listen to any more of that from me.
I shall not tell you again that I care for you. And anyway, in a little
while it will no longer be true. Because I shall get over it."
She looked up.
"And I want you to know that I am not angry. And even if I were I want
you to understand that you need not be afraid of my resentment."
"I am not!" she flashed out.
"You are! You are afraid that I might be the sort of creature to
revenge wounded amour propre by proving faithless to the confidence you
gave me. Don't worry," I added angrily, "because I'd cut my tongue out
or face a firing squad before I'd utter one word to anybody concerning
what you told me about your mission here."
There was a silence. Then Thusis' smile came back, a trifle
tremulously:
"You silly boy!" she said. "Did you think I was afraid of _that_!"
"You say that, in my case, noblesse oblige means nothing to me."