He should not win!
If she had not seen herself as a figure in an oleograph and laughed.... The ways of salvation!
She laughed again. Ordith, with the first laugh still ringing in his ears, moved as if to come to her. But, on the instant, the tension that had held her failed. With the sob, not of a woman but of a little girl, she drooped and trembled and hid her face in her hands. She was crying like a child who, having come through some great fear, breaks down under confidence restored: tears of relief, of sanity snatched back, held—just held.
“Margaret!”
She dropped her hands, raised her head. Her eyes were swimming and glistening with tears, her cheeks flushed as if with happy excitement.
“Oh, leave me alone, Nick—please—please! Nick—please. Promise you will leave me alone always.... I’m frightened. You could get anything you wanted at last. But you don’t want me—not really. It’s so much to me; so little to you. Please, Nick, is this the end?”
“If you wish it.”
She seized his hands between hers. “Even if he persuades?”
“Yes.”