The Witness

e flung them from him. He had
sprung from the couch almost as if he had been under orders. She could
not understand it, only she knew she was drawn by it all.

But he should yield! She had power and she would use it. She had beauty
and it should wound him. She would win that gentle deference and
attention for her own. In her jealous, spoiled, little heart she hated
the little brother for lying there in his arms so, interrupting their
evening just when she had him where she had wanted him. Whether she
wanted him for more than a plaything she did not know, but her plaything
he should be as long as she desired him--and more also if she chose.

When Courtland lifted his head at the sound of the doctor's footsteps on
the stairs he saw the challenge in Gila's eyes. Drawn up against the
white enamel of the bathroom door, all her brilliant velvet and jewels
gleaming in the brightness of the room, her regal little head up, her
chin lifted half haughtily, her innocent mouth pursed softly with
determination, her eyes wide with an inscrutable look--something more
than challenge--something soft, appealing, alluring, that stirred him
and drew him and repelled him all in one.

With a sense of something stronger than he was back of him, he lifted
his own chin and hardened his eyes in answering challenge. He did not
know it, of course, but he wore the look that he always had when about
to meet a foe in a game--a look of strength and concealed power that
nearly always made the coming foe quake when he saw it.

He shrank from going back to that red room again, or from being alone
with her; and when she would have had him return to the library he
declined, urging studies and an examination on the morrow. She received
his somewhat brusque reply with a hurt look, her mouth drooped
grievedly, and her eyes took on a wide, child-like look of distress that
gave an impression of innocence. He went away wondering if, after all,
he had not misjudged her. Perhaps she was only an adorable child who had
no idea

John Addington Symonds (October 5, 1840 - April 19, 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. He was an early advocate of the validity of male love which included for him pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, and which he would refer to as lamour de limpossible.

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