"You must not dare to trifle with me. You cannot intend to accept him?"
"Mother will determine for me."
Mr. Palma had become very pale, and his glittering teeth gnawed his lower lip.
"Is your acceptance of that man contingent only on her consent and approval?"
For a moment she looked away at the blue heavens bending above her, and wondered if the sky would blacken when she had irretrievably committed herself to this union. The thought was hourly growing horrible, and she shivered.
He stooped close to her, and even then she noted how laboured was his breathing, and that his mouth quivered:
"Answer me; do you mean to marry him?"
"I do, if mother gives me permission."
Bravely she met his eyes, but her words were a mere whisper, and she felt that the worst was over; for her there could be no retraction.
It was the keenest blow, the most bitter disappointment of Erle Palma's hitherto successful life, but his face hardened, and he bore it, as was his habit, without any demonstration, save that discoverable in his mortal paleness.