"You mustn't think any more about it," he managed to say, and rather tardily. "You can't help what he does." Mostyn's passionate gaze was fixed on her again. "How pretty, how very pretty that dress is!" he flared out. "Are you going to church this morning?"
"Oh yes," she replied, half smiling down into his eyes. "I must set a good example to Ann and George."
Burning under the memory of her kiss of the night before, Mostyn told himself that he must by all means see her alone that day. He must hold the delicious creature in his arms again, feel the warmth of her lips, and capture the assurance of a love the like of which was a novelty even to him.
"What are you thinking about?" she suddenly demanded.
"I am thinking, Dolly, that you have the most maddening mouth that ever woman had, and your eyes--"
"Don't, don't!" she said, with a shudder. "I can't explain it, but, somehow, when you look and speak that way--"
"I can't help it," he blurted out, warmly. "You make my very brain whirl. I can hardly look at you. It is all I can do to keep from snatching you to my arms again, even here where any one could see us. Say, darling, do me a favor. Don't go to church to-day. Make some excuse. Stay at home with me and let the others go. I have a thousand things to tell you."
The slight, shifting frown on her face steadied itself. She gave him a swift glance, then avoided his amorous eyes.
"Oh, I couldn't do that, even for you," she faltered. "They have asked me to sing in a quartette. That is why I put on this dress. The other girls are going to fix up a little."
"Then you won't oblige me?"
"I can't. I simply can't. It would be deceitful, and I am not a bit like that. I'm just what I am, open and aboveboard in everything. And that is why I know--feel that I did not act right last night."
"There you go again," he cried, lightly, forcing a laugh. "When will you ever drop that? You say you love me, and I know I love you, so why should you not let me kiss you? I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll order a horse and buggy sent out from Ridgeville this afternoon, and we will take a nice drive over the mountain."