"How quick you are," he said, "to seize every opportunity of evading me! Do you think you can escape me, Madaline? Do you think my love is so weak, so faint, so feeble, that it can be pushed aside lightly by your will? Do you think that, if you tried to get to the other end of the world, you could escape me?"
Half blushing, half laughing, trembling, yet with a happy light in her blue eyes, she said:
"I think you are more terrible than any one I know."
"I am glad that you are growing frightened, and are willing to own that you have a master--that is as it should be. I want to talk to you, Madaline. You evade me lest you should be compelled to speak to me; you lower those beautiful eyes of yours, lest I should be made happy by looking into them. If you find it possible to avoid my presence, to run away from me, you do. I am sure to woo you, to win you, to make you my sweet, dear wife--to make you happier, I hope, than any woman has ever been before--and you try to evade me, fair, sweet, cruel Madaline!"
"I am afraid of you, Lord Arleigh," she said, little dreaming how much the naïve confession implied.
"Afraid of me! That is because you see that I am quite determined to win you. I can easily teach you how to forget all fear."
"Can you?" she asked, doubtfully.
"Yes, I can, indeed, Madaline. Deposit those peaches in their green leaves on the ground. Now place both your hands in mine."
She quietly obeyed the first half of his request as though she were a child, and then she paused. The sweet face crimsoned again; he took her hands in his.
"You must be obedient," he said. "Now look at me."