I'd steal you.
You've done something to me, God knows what."
"Then I can only say I'm sorry," Lily said slowly.
She felt strangely helpless and rather maternal. With all his
strength this sort of man needed to be protected from himself. She
felt no answering thrill whatever to his passion, but as though,
having told her he loved her, he had placed a considerable
responsibility in her hands.
"I'll be good now," he said. "Mind, I'm not sorry. But I don't
want to worry you."
He made no further overtures to her during the ride, but he was
neither sulky nor sheepish. He feigned an anxiety as to the
threatened strike, and related at great length and with extreme
cleverness of invention his own efforts to prevent it.
"I've a good bit of influence with the A.F.L.," he said. "Doyle's
in bad with them, but I'm still solid. But it's coming, sure as
shooting. And they'll win, too."
He knew women well, and he saw that she was forgiving him. But she
would not forget. He had a cynical doctrine, to the effect that a
woman's first kiss of passion left an ineradicable mark on her, and
he was quite certain that Lily had never been so kissed before.
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