“Really, I need only a little rest,” she persisted. “If I could lie down a few minutes––” her eyes again were turned toward the cottage.
He saw what she meant, and frowned.
“No!” he snapped. Then, checking himself, “I don’t mean to be inhospitable, but you ought to know that’s impossible.”
“You mean––Cousin Seth?”
He shot a look at her that frightened her, but gratified her too. Was she rousing him at last?
“Yes, if you like,” he said, quietly enough. “I’m having a hard enough time with the fool without a woman being mixed up in the affair.”
“I don’t understand,” said Marion.
“You don’t understand!” he repeated. “Of course 82 not. Women never understand––until afterwards. I’ll make it plainer. I’m a bad man, as you have doubtless heard. What would Paradise Park say when it learned that you had been inveigled into my house?”
She was silent a moment.
“Well then, let me sit here and rest!” she insisted.