For an instant her arms clung about his shoulders, and then,
suddenly, they strained against him, and she tore herself free,
and, with a cry so pathetic that it seemed as though her heart had
broken in that moment, she fled from him, and out of the room.
XVIII
Philip stood where Jeanne had left him, his arms half reaching out
to the vacant door through which she had fled, his lips parted as
if to call her name, and yet motionless, dumb. A moment before he
was intoxicated by a joy that was almost madness. He had held
Jeanne in his arms; he had looked into her eyes, filled with
surrender under his caresses and his avowal of love. For a moment
he had possessed her, and now he was alone. The cry that had wrung
itself from her lips, breaking in upon his happiness like a blow,
still rang in his ears, and there was something in the exquisite
pain of it that left him in torment. Heart and soul, every drop of
blood in him, had leaped in the joy of that glorious moment, when
Jeanne's eyes and sweet lips had accepted his love, and her arms
had clung about his shoulders. Now these things had been struck
dead within him. He felt again the fierce pressure of Jeanne's
arms as she had thrust him away, he saw the fright and torture
that had leaped into her eyes as she sprang from him, as though
his touch had suddenly become a sacrilege.
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