And then Jennifer laughed; laughed close beside him in the hot dusky night; laughed a little mocking laugh that brought the blood stinging to his face. He stood, dazed as though the laugh had been a blow.
"Weren't you going to speak to me?" she asked.
She stood with hands linked behind her and head cocked in that saucy way which she used to Slicker, and—in those age-old days when friendship was possible—to himself. Now—with the thing that lay between them. Now—when he dared not lift his eyes to her—she could laugh, and she could look at him like that.
"I had thought that you would have preferred" he began stupidly. But his head was singing. Why did she look at him like that?
"What made you come away from them?" cried Jennifer. "I can only stand a long way off and hear them laughing. We can never have such a good time, you know. I can't go and make offerings to Bacchus."
"He never objects to a Bacchante," said Dick.
He reddened, and would have taken it back, but Jennifer laughed again, rocking on heels and toes. Her whole attitude was daring, sharply vivid. She looked light as a cloud and as free. She was the essence of life, distilled to a burning drop, and Dick was not the man to look on her unknowing it. He caught his breath, coming near with tingling blood. This was not the white lady of his worship. It was not Jennifer. He did not know who it was. He did not know anything, but that he would have his hands on her presently.
She moved a few steps down the beach, looking back at him over her shoulder. And what she saw contented her. She was playing her game, full and fiercely as a woman can play it, and already she had puzzled the man. In one moment she had smashed all his theories and left his slower mind fumbling on the edge of something strange. And before he had grasped that with masculine decision she would be somewhere else. The spirit of illusion, of excitement, of snatching hot coals and dropping them with such swiftness that they would not burn was on her. She saw him follow, and she was glad, for her hate for him was as great as her love. He had flung her heart down
