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Page 34
Her little movement and the clasping of her hands affected him
profoundly. He, too, quivered, but with the stern effort to
control himself. It was part of his code of honor. Not the
slightest advantage must be taken of the situation while Stella
was alone and unchaperoned, although the very fact of their
propinquity and the knowledge of their solitude were extremely
exciting to him, who knew the meaning of every emotion. He drew a
little away from her, and said in a voice that sounded cold:
"I have seen the consul this afternoon. It will take three weeks,
I am afraid, before we can be legally married here in Rome. It
seems an eternity to me."
"Yes," agreed Stella, and suddenly looked down. She wished
intensely that he would caress her a little--although she was
unaware of the desire. She wondered vaguely--was it then very
wicked to make love, since Sasha, too, like Eustace, seemed as if
he were resisting something with all his strength? And
unconsciously she pouted her red underlip, and Count Roumovski
moved convulsively.
"My sister's room is next to this," he said, "and yours is beyond.
I have had only roses put there, because you are like a sweet June
rose."
"Am I?" said Miss Rawson, and raised her head. She had grown
extremely excited and disappointed, and, she knew not what, only
that she did not like this new lover of hers to be sitting there
constrained and aloof, talking in a stiff voice unlike his usual
easy grace. It was perfectly ridiculous to have run away with some
one with whom she was passionately in love, if he were going to
remain as cold as ice!
She got up and took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her
dress. The whole movement and action had the unconscious coquetry
of a woman's methods to gain her end. Totally unaccustomed as
Stella was to all artifices, instinct was her teacher.
Sasha Roumovski rose suddenly.
"Come and sit here beside me again, heart of mine," he commanded
with imperious love, and indicated the stiff Louis XIV sofa. "I
must explain everything to you, it would seem."
Stella had never heard this tone in his voice before; it caused
her strange delight, and she shyly took her seat at one end of the
sofa, and then, as he flung himself down beside her, she looked up
at him.
"What must you explain?" she asked.
"First, that I love you madly, that it is sickening temptation to
be with you now every instant without holding you in my arms," and
his voice trembled, while his blue eyes glowed. "That I do not
know how to resist the wild passion which is overcoming me. I want
to kiss you so terribly, more than I have ever wanted anything in
my life."
"We-ll?" said Stella, with a quiver of exquisite joy. "And--" she
had almost spoken her thought of, "Why do you not do so, then?"--
but the burning passion she read in his made her drop her eyes.
This was too much for him. He understood perfectly, and, with a
little cry, he drew her to him, and his lips had almost touched
her red, young, pouting lips when he suddenly controlled himself
and put her from him.
"No, sweetheart," he said hoarsely, "you would never respect me
any more if I took advantage of your tenderness now. As soon--as
soon as I really may, I will teach you every shade of love and its
meanings. I will kiss those lips and unloosen that hair; I will
suffocate you with caresses and make you thrill as I shall thrill
until we both forget everything in the intoxication of bliss," and
he half-closed his eyes, and his face grew pale again with
suppressed emotion.
"Oh, I do not understand at all," Stella said, in a disappointed
and perplexed voice. "Since we are going to be married, why would
it be so very wrong for you to kiss me? I--I--" her small rueful
face, with its sweet childlike irregular curves, looked almost
pathetically comic, and Sasha leaned forward and covered his eyes
with his hands. And then he mastered himself and laughed softly.
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