“This is positively delicious,” she exclaimed. “I am being made love to in medieval fashion. Other times other manners, sir! Will you listen to reason?”
“I will listen to nothing—save your answer, yes or no,” he declared, drawing on his overcoat.
She laid her hand upon his shoulder.
“Reginald,” she said, “you are like the whirlwind—and how can I answer you in five minutes!”
“You can answer me in one,” he declared fiercely. “Will you pay my price if I do your bidding? Yes or no! The price is yourself. Now! Yes or no?”
She drew on her own cloak and fastened the clasp with shaking fingers. Then she turned towards the door.
“I wish you good-bye and good fortune, Reginald,” she said. “I daresay we may not meet again. It will be better that we do not.”
“This then is your answer?” he cried.
She looked around at him. Was it his fancy, or were those tears in her eyes? Or was she really so wonderful an actress?
“Do you think,” she said, “that if I had not cared I should have come here?”