"What a night for the moralities--for the ashes of repentance! I ask a
man into the rose-garden to make love to me and he preaches to me
instead--_preaches to me_! of the world, the flesh and the devil, _par
exemple_! Was ever a pretty woman in a more humiliating position!"

She approached him again and leaned over him, the strands of her hair
brushing his temples, her voice whispering mockingly just at his ear.

"Oh, la la! You make such a pretty lover, John. If I could only
paint you in your sackcloth and ashes, I should die in content. What
is it like, _mon ami_, to feel like moralizing in a rose-garden by
moonlight? What do they tell you--the roses? Of the dull earth from
which they come? Don't they whisper of the kisses of the night winds,
of the drinking of the dew--of the mad joy of living--the sweetness of
dying? Or don't they say anything to you at all--except that they are
merely roses, John?"

She brushed the blossom in her fingers lightly across his lips and
sprang away from him. But it was too late. She had gone too far and
she realized it in a moment; for thought she eluded him once, he
caught her in his arms and kissed her roughly on the lips.

"You'd mock at me, would you?" he cried.

She struggled in his arms and then lay inert. She deserved this
revenge she knew, but not the carelessness of these kisses of
retribution, each of them merciless with the burden of her awakening.

"Let me go, John," she said faintly. "You must not--"