He reached out a casual arm and pulled her into a smothering embrace.
"That is inaccurate. You utterly adore me, and you know it . . . poor child!" he commented. Then he kissed her with such expertise that her toes curled up and her kneecaps wilted like day-old asparagus, to match the above-described condition of her intellectual equipment. Then he made the mistake of releasing her.
KRAK!
Her palm connected with his cheek stunningly. Crimson with fury, she slapped a gravity-neutralizer on Dangerfield's forehead and towed him out of the room like a suitcase. Hautley sighed, gingerly touching his stinging cheek.
"Such passion," he yawned, boredly. "Why does she keep up this dull pretence of fighting it? The girl's mad for me, obviously."
He had a versicle expressive of this amorous ennui:
Grim jest: they yield at touch of hand.
Too easy conquest is ... too bland!
We shall leave the indomitable Quicksilver at that point, enveloped in his own comfortable delusions.
THE END