"If I want to flee now," she thought, "I shall have to throw myself out of the window."
"Don't you intend to budge until to-morrow morning?" he said. "If so, I'll engage your services as a clothes horse."
A smirking calm seemed to have come over him, as if he were at last sure of his possession.
He threw himself in a corner of the sofa, lighted a cigarette, and looked at her with a connoisseur's gaze, while she slowly divested herself of her cloak and drew out her hatpin with hesitating fingers.
A waiter entered bearing a tray with cold dishes and a silver-throated bottle.
"Champagne again?" asked Lilly, who still had a slightly sickish feeling.
"The very thing," he said, pouring a foaming jet into the goblets. "It gives a little girl courage to dedicate the lovely nightgown waiting for her in the trunk."
She clinked glasses with him in obedience to his demand, but scarcely moistened her lips with the wine.
He jokingly took her to task, and she pled:
"I shouldn't like to be drunk on such a sacred evening."
Her answer seemed to gratify him immensely. He burst into a noisy laugh, and observed:
He attempted to draw her down to him, but contact with him made her uneasy, and she eluded his grasp with a quick movement.
"You said you wanted me to hunt for the nightgown."
She knelt at the trunk, which she herself had packed the night before, lifted the trays out, and from near the bottom fetched out the nebulous, lacy creation, which was one of the many things he had bought her before the wedding.
She looked about for a retreat, but nowhere on earth was there escape from that pair of eyes which swimming in desire followed her every movement.
Hesitating, faint-hearted she stood there, her fingers hanging to her collar, which she did not venture to unfasten.
He was about to seize her, but the look she gave him was so full of despair that a knightly impulse bade him desist.
To account for his action he picked up a roll of paper that had dropped from the trunk while she had been rummaging for the nightgown.
Lilly saw something white gleam between his dark fingers.
With a cry she jumped on him and tried to snatch away the roll. But his hand held it as in a vice.
He defended himself with ease, laughing all the time.