"They can cry themselves hoarse, as they'll have to some day," he replied cheerfully. "As for you, Miss Fedora—you don't mind my calling you Miss Fedora, do you?—you'll be glad some day that you were born at the beginning of a new era. You may be a pioneer in the new ways, but you may take my word for it that you won't be the last. Please have courage. Please try and be yourself, won't you?"
"But how do you know what I am?" she protested. "Or even what I am like? We have spoken only a few words. Nothing has passed between us which could possibly have inspired you with such feelings as you speak of," she added, colouring slightly. "It is a fancy of yours, quite too absurd a fancy. Now that I find myself discussing it with you as though, indeed, we were talking of it seriously, I am inclined to laugh. You are just a very foolish young man, Mr. Lane."
He shook his head.
"Look here," he said, "I am very good at meaning things, but it's awfully hard for me to put my thoughts into words. I can't explain how it's all come about. I don't know why, amongst all the girls I've seen in my own country, or England, or Paris, or anywhere, there hasn't been one who could bring me the things which you bring, who could fill my mind with the thoughts you fill it with, who could make my days stand still and start again, who could upset the whole machinery of my life so that when you come I want to dance with happiness, and when you go the day is over with me. There is no chance of my being able to explain this to you, because other fellows, much cleverer than I, have been in the same box, and they've had to come to the conclusion, too, that there isn't any explanation. I have accepted it. I want you to. I love you, Fedora, and I will be faithful to you all my life. You shall live where you choose and how you choose, but you must be my wife. There isn't any way out of it for either of us."
She sat quite still for several moments. They were a little behind the curtain and it chanced that there was no one in their immediate vicinity. She felt her fingers suddenly gripped. They were released again almost at once, but a queer sensation of something overmastering seemed to creep through her whole being at the touch of his hand. She rose to her feet.
"I am going away," she declared.
"I haven't offended you?" he begged. "Please sit down. We haven't half talked over things yet."
"We have talked too much," she answered. "I don't know really what has come over me that I have let you—that I listen to you—"
"It is because you feel the truth of what I say," he insisted. "Don't get up, Fedora. Don't go away, dear. Let us have at least these few minutes together. I'll do exactly as you tell me. I'll come to your father or I'll carry you off. I have a sister here. She'll be your friend—"
"Don't!" the girl stopped him. "Please don't!"