“Haven’t you been home?” she asked, startled. “Haven’t you dined?”
“Yes!”—something seemed to strangle him in the one word. “Yes—I—went home. No, don’t call any one. I’m going back to Government House to feed—later.”
“But, Evelyn”—her arms suddenly tightened about his large loose figure; she looked up with a beautiful white face—“have you bad news?”
“No!”—he spoke the one word with no uncertainty, but then he framed her face in his two hands and looked hard into her eyes. “Do you know,” he said fiercely, “I am tempted to break my word to you!”
“How?”—but she knew in all her leaping blood.
“To make you rather more mine than I have a right to yet, to-night.” For a minute it seemed that his decision hung in the balance, while she wondered blankly why her will seemed frozen, and she could not say at once, as she must do, “I will not!”
“If I let you off, promise me afresh to come to me some day—when we are free,” he said urgently, the assurance of his first words startling her. “You will not throw me over for some woman’s scruple—will you?”
Such uncertainty was even more unusual than his taking her consent for granted, for he was anxious now, pleading for what he had already gained, as if there were some real fear of losing it.
“Evelyn, there is something troubling you!” she exclaimed. “There is something wrong!”
“No, nothing—but say what I want. Promise me——”