“Because—oh, don’t you feel as I do? Don’t you——”
“But why are you telling it to me now?”
He was seized by an impulse to put away even this rattling imitation of reason, to make his spring now. All the world was moving so swiftly about him that he felt only force and sensation could keep pace with it. It pleased him to see that her eyes were frightened, and that, though she wanted to go away, she could not move. This was power; but he would not use it yet; he must not use it for months to come. Now he would go on saying something while he watched her.
“Can’t you understand why I am telling it to you?”
“You talk so fast,” she said, her hand travelling to her forehead.
“Then I’ll talk slower.”
“No,” she said, under her breath; but he paid no attention. His voice continued—to her ears as inexplicit as music.
“Between us we will lay great plans,” she heard him say presently, and her protest against being thus included was never uttered. “Out in the East—the home of all philosophy—we shall have time to think. Margaret, you will help me to get all this clear in my mind?”
All what? He didn’t know or care. It sufficed that he had bound her to him by some tie, the more difficult to break because it was so vague. Moreover, his use of her name had been resisted only by a quick intaking of breath.
“You will help me?” he repeated. “You must—you must.” Then, too confident, he stooped over her and reached with his hands for hers. By his lightest touch the spell he had laid upon her was broken. She started up, the blood tingling in her. She knew that she had acquiesced in something she had not considered, as if she had spoken in her sleep. His ascendancy was revealed as menacing—a cloud that overshadowed her, and, while it held her attention, warned her to take shelter.