He passed her a document which he had drawn from his pocket. She took it from him wonderingly. When she had read a few lines, the colour came streaming into her cheeks. She threw it to the ground. He picked it up and replaced it in his pocket.
"But it is preposterous!" she cried. "That is a marriage license!"
"That's precisely what it is," he admitted. "I thought we'd be married at Nice. My sister is waiting to go along with us. I said we'd pick her up at the Hotel de Paris."
Severe critics of her undoubted beauty had ventured at times to say that Fedora's face lacked expression. There was, at that moment, no room for any such criticism. Amazement struggled with indignation in her eyes. Her lips were quivering, her breath was coming quickly.
"Do you mean—have you given her or any one to understand that there was any likelihood of my consenting to such an absurd scheme?"
"I only told her what I hoped," he said quietly. "That is all I dared say even to myself. But I want you to listen to me."
His voice had grown softer. She turned her head and looked at him. He was much taller than she was, and in his grey tweed suit, his head a little thrown back, his straw hat clasped in his hands behind him, his clear grey eyes full of serious purpose, he was certainly not an unattractive figure to look upon. Unconsciously she found herself comparing him once more with the men of her world, found herself realising, even against her will, the charm of his naïve and dogged honesty, his youth, his tenacity of purpose. She had never been made love to like this before.
"Please listen," he begged. "I am afraid that your father must be in a tearing rage by now, but it can't be helped. He is out there and he hasn't got an earthly chance of getting back until I give the word. We've got plenty of time to reach Nice before he can land. I just want you to realise, Fedora, that you are your own mistress. You can make or spoil your own life. No one else has any right to interfere. Have you ever seen any one yet, back in your own country, amongst your own people, whom you really felt that you cared for—who you really believed would be willing to lay down his life to make you happy?"
"No," she confessed simply, "I do not know that I have. Our men are not like that."
"It is because," he went on, "there is no one back there who cares as I do. I have spent some years of my life looking—quite unconsciously, but looking all the same—for some one like you. Now I have found you I am glad I have waited. There couldn't be any one else. There never could be, Fedora. I love you just in the way a man does love once in his life, if he's lucky. It's a queer sort of feeling, you know," he continued, leaning a little towards her. "It makes me quite sure that I could make you happy. It makes me quite sure that if you'll give me your hand and trust me, and leave everything to me, you'll have just the things in life that women want. Won't you be brave, Fedora? There are some things to break through, I know, but they don't amount to much—they don't, really. And I love you, you know. You can't imagine yet what a wonderful difference that makes. You'll find out and you'll be glad."