“But how can I?” argued she gently, looking admiringly up at him. “You’ve become the big influence in my life. If I had known you earlier I’d have been very different. Even now I feel as if a great change were coming over me——”
“It’s the cold you’re catching,” interrupted he, in desperate attempt to be jocose and create a diversion. “You must go straight home.”
“Chang,” she said, laying her hand on his arm, “if you were rich, instead of poor, would you talk to me like this?”
“Now, Rix—stop that nonsense.”
“Don’t, Chang,” she pleaded. “You realize, just as well as I do, that we’ve made a frightful mistake.”
He did not venture an answer.
“You knew it as soon as you saw me this morning—didn’t you?” continued she. “Yes, I saw it in your eyes. I felt it in your——”
He suddenly seized her by both shoulders, looked into her eyes searchingly. “This isn’t a bit like you, Rix. What are you up to?”
She simply gazed at him—a gaze he found it hard to withstand; yet he could not shift his charmed eyes.
“You’re trying to lead me on. Why?” he demanded.