"I am so glad that I happen to have a favor for
you."
She leaned forward, swaying toward him her white shoulders, dazzling
him with the hint of the swell of her bosom, bewildering him with the
perfume of her dark hair, the alluring feminine presence which brought
the hot blood to his face. Before he guessed her intention, she had
pinned to his cassock a grotesque little dangling mask which swung from
a bright ribbon.
"There," she commented, drawing back as if critically to observe. "The
effect is novel, but striking."
A burst of amusement, light and blinding as the spray from a whirlpool,
went up from the women around. The music, the voices, the laughter,
seemed to Maurice so many insults flung at him in idle contempt. He
looked around him with a bitter anger which could almost have smitten
these laughing women on their red mouths. Then he turned back to
Berenice. He saw that she shrank before the wrath of his look; he felt
with a thrill that he had at least power to make her fear him. He bent
toward her full of rage made the wilder by the impulse to catch her in
his arms and cover her beautiful neck with kisses.
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