.

I'm tempted to--only--only--" "What ?" "I don't know; I couldn't.

I--it was only the temptation of a second--" She laughed uncertainly.

The suggestion of the intimacy tinted her cheeks with its reaction; she took a short step backward; instinct, blindly stirring, sobered her; and as the smile faded from eye and lip, his face changed, too.

And far, very far away in the silent cells of his heart a distant pulse awoke.
She turned to her roses again, moving at random among the bushes, disciplining with middle-finger and thumb a translucent, amber-tinted shoot here and there.