He stooped and raised her by main force, yet tenderly.
"There, there, Ninitta," he said, "I was wrong. I do believe you are a good girl; but you should not have played the spy."
He soothed her as well as he was able, her violence spending itself in passionate tears. She drew herself away from him, and sat down again in the chair she had been occupying. She put up her hands to her head, twisting the loose tresses into a great coil. The sleeve of her dress, unfastened in her agitation, fell back from her rounded arm. The superb lines of her figure were displayed by her attitude. Her face, flushed with weeping and lighted by the still tear-wet eyes, if not beautiful, was appealing and pitiful. Some fiber touched of old vibrated anew in his being. He made a step forward.
"Ninitta," he said, "I came to-night to ask you to marry me at once; to fulfill the promise I made you so long ago."
The words and the tone both were tender, but he had said those same words in anger just before.
"But you do not love me," she responded, her arms dropping pathetically into her lap. "You have said it."
"But I was angry," answered Herman, for the moment almost believing that his old love was re-awakened. "I did not mean you to believe it."
"If you do love me," she said, a new look coming into her eyes, "you will promise me never to see her again."
He started back as if from a blow. His frail dream of passion was shattered like a bubble at her words. A wave of bitter self-contempt that its existence had been possible swept over him. The blood surged into his cheeks. Ninitta saw the flush and her eye kindled.
"Promise me," she repeated. "It is little for love to ask. It is my right."