Thompson's arm closed about her, his lips grazed her cheek as she
twisted her head to evade him. That minor show of resistance stirred all
the primitive instincts that active or dormant lurk in every strong man.
He twisted her head roughly, and as naturally as water flows down hill
their lips met. He felt the girl's body nestle with a little tremor
closer to his, felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her heart
against his breast. He held her tight, and her face slowly drew away
from him, and turned shyly against his shoulder.
"It is so, and you know it's so," he whispered hoarsely. "Sophie, I
wish--"
She freed herself from his embrace with a sudden twist. Her breath went
out in a little gasp. She looked over her shoulder once, and up at
Thompson, and a wave of red swept up over her fresh young face and dyed
it to the roots of her sunny hair. For a brief instant her hand lingered
in Thompson's, bestowing a quick and tender pressure. Then she was gone
up the bank with a bound like a startled deer.
Thompson turned. Ten yards out in the stream Tommy Ashe's red canoe
drifted, and Tommy sat in the stern, his wet paddle poised as if he had
halted it midway of a stroke, his body bent forward, tense as that of a
beast crouched to spring.
The bow of the canoe grounded. Ashe laid down his paddle, stepped
forward and ashore, hauling the craft's nose high with one hand. His
gaze never left Thompson's face. He came slowly up, his round, boyish
countenance white and hard and ugly, his eyes smoldering. Thompson felt
his own face hardening into the same ugly lines. He felt himself
threatened. Without being fully aware of his act he had dropped into a
belligerent pose, head and shoulders thrust forward, one foot drawn
back, hands clenched. This was purely instinctive. That Tommy Ashe had
seen him kiss Sophie Carr and was advancing upon him in jealous fury did
not occur to Thompson at all.
"You beggar," Ashe gritted, "is it part of your system of saving souls
to kiss a girl as if--"
The quality of his tone would have stung a less sensitive man. With
Sophie Carr's lip-pressure fresh and warm upon his own Thompson was in
that exalted mood wherein a man is like an open powder keg. And Tommy
Ashe had supplied the spark. A most unchristian flash of anger shot
through him. His reply was an earnest, if ill-directed blow. This Tommy
dodged by the simplest expedient of twisting his head sidewise without
moving his body, and launched at the same time a return jab which neatly
smacked against Thompson's jaw.
Tommy Ashe was wonderfully quick on his feet and a powerful man to boot.
Moreover he had a certain dexterity with his fists. He was in deadly
earnest, as a man is when matters of sex lead him to a personal clash.
But he found pitted against him a man equally powerful, a man whose
extra reach and weight offset the advantage in skill, a man who gave and
took blows with silent ferocity.