"You wouldn't marry Brian Luttrell, then?"
"Percival!"
"Not under any consideration? Well, tell me so. I like to hear you say it."
Elizabeth was silent.
"Tell me so," he said, stretching out his hand to her, and looking at her attentively, "and I will tell you the reason of my week's silence."
"I have no need to tell you so," she answered, in a suppressed voice. "And if I did you would not trust me."
"No," he said, drily, "perhaps not; but promise me, all the same, that under no circumstances will you ever marry Brian Luttrell."
"I promise," she said, in a low tone of humiliation. Her eyes were full of tears. "And now let me go, Percival. I cannot stay with you—when you say that you trust me so little."
He had taken advantage of her rising to seize her hand. He now tossed his cigar into the fire, and rose, too, still holding her hand in his. He looked down at her quivering lips, her tear-filled eyes, with gathering intensity of emotion. Then he put both arms round her, pressed her to his breast with passionate vehemence, and kissed her again and again, on cheek, lip, neck, and brow. She shivered a little, but did not protest.
"There!" he said, suddenly putting her away from him, and standing erect with the black frowning line very strongly marked upon his forehead. "I will tell you now why I did not try to keep Brian Luttrell in England. I knew that I ought to make a row about it. I knew that I was bound in honour to write to Colquhoun, to you, to Mrs. Luttrell, to any of the people concerned. And I didn't do it. I didn't precisely mean not to do it, but I wanted to shift the responsibility. I thought it was other people's business to keep him in England: not mine. As a matter of fact, I suppose it was mine. What do you say?"