Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ Let's get home, Beppo. And, if you don't mind, do promise me never to speak to me of it again!”
“I do promise you,” he said solemnly. And then, to Lily's secret astonishment, Beppo seemed suddenly to slip back into his old pleasant, easy way with her! It was almost as if what had happened on the edge of that great wooded gorge had been a dream—horrible, unnerving to look back on, but still only a dream.
Even so, she felt she would never forget, not even if she lived another fifty years, that awful moment of wordless, passionate struggle in the little car. ”

“ He stopped, and Lily, looking at him puzzled, asked hesitatingly: “What is it, Beppo? You know I would do anything in reason to please you.”
“All I ask for,” he said at last, “is the privilege——”
“Yes?” said Lily. “What privilege, Beppo?”
He did not answer at once, and when at last he spoke, his voice had dropped almost to a whisper.
“The privilege of taking you in my arms and kissing you just once, Lily! That is all I ask. Is it not possible that at the contact of our lips your hesitation, your coldness, will melt? May I not teach you what a man's love means to the woman he adores?” ”

“ Beppo Polda had never seen in a woman's face the look of physical repugnance he now saw in hers.
“You are not the pure angel that I thought you to be,” he said hoarsely. “You are keeping your kisses for another man. Is not that so, Lily? If the answer is 'yes,' then I will drive you and myself over the precipice! I have lived my life—I should not mind dying with you!” He was lashing himself up into more and more furious anger. “What a simple-minded fool I was! You are not the first English girl I have known, Lily. ”