Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/295

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"THE THIEF ON THE LEFT"
293

their great love. "What have I done to you?" she said again. "Tell me, et si vous faché centre moi I will undo it."

"I am not angry. But you can't undo it, and neither can I."

The cynical smile twitched his lips again. "The trouble began when you were made a woman and I was made a man, Andree."

"But I did not mean to be," she said, not understanding.

"No." He looked at her with his eyes half-closed as when he was painting her. "No; it would have been better not to be, wouldn't it? The Power which created you will owe you a good deal at settling-up time, Grange's Andree."

"Ah!" she said impatiently. "I do not understand. Kiss me, Dick. You did not never wait so long before."

"You hit very straight for a woman, my dear girl. But I am not going to kiss you any more, Andree, because, having hurt you quite considerably I have to keep on hurting you in order to gain my self-respect. Does that sound funny to you? It sounds equally funny to me. Very nearly funny enough to make one laugh. But I can assure you that it is according to the ordinary rules of the game."

"Dieu! You make so much talk! And I do not understand." She pushed her face close to his. "Put your hands on my face and kiss me, Dick. That I do understand."

"Yes, you do, Heaven help you. We have made sure of that."

He freed himself from her clutching hands and picked up her cap and coat.

"Put these on and go home, Andree," he said. "It's getting late."

She sprang upright in one bound; her hands gripped up, her eyes blazing.

He shrugged his shoulders and turned to meet her.

"Now we are going to have it," he said.

A moment she stood so; battling with the great sobs that were shaking her. Then she hurled herself forward on her knees with her arms round him in what would