She helped him out.
"All this time you have not told me why you were upset--upset enough
to drink bad port. That was naughty of you, Paul."
"I was upset--over you. I was angry because I was so interested--" and
he reddened again.
She leant back among the purple cushions, her figure so supple in its
lines, it made him think of a snake. She half closed her eyes
again--and she spoke low in a dreamy voice:
"It was fate, Paul. I knew it when I entered the room. I felt it again
among the green trees, and so I ran from you--but to-night it is
_plus fort que moi_--so I called you to come in."
"I am so glad--so _glad_," said Paul.
She remained silent. Her eyes in their narrowed lids gleamed at him,
seeming to penetrate into his very soul. And now he noticed her mouth
again. It neither drooped nor smiled, it was straight, and chiselled
and strong, and small rather, and the lower lip was rounded and
slightly cleft in the centre. A most appetising red flower of a mouth.
By this time Paul was more or less intoxicated with excitement, he had
lost all sense of time and place. It seemed as if he had known her
always--that there never had been a moment when she had not filled the
whole of his horizon.
They were both silent for a couple of minutes.
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