"God! What's the matter, huh? You expect to be kissed, don't you? I'm going to be your husband, huh? Expect to be kissed then, don't you? What is the matter with you?"
She got up from the sofa, her legs sagging beneath her.
Looking, he saw her face was colorless: Steppe was alarmed. He wanted her badly. She had the appeal which other women lacked, qualities which he himself lacked. And he had frightened her. Perhaps she would break off everything. He expected to see the ring torn from her trembling hand and thrown on the floor at his feet. Instead of that:
"I am very sorry, Mr. Steppe—foolish of me. I've had rather a trying day." She was breathless, as though she had been running at a great pace.
"Of course, Beryl, I understand. I'm too rough with you, huh? Why, it is I who should be sorry, and I am. Good friends, huh?"
He held out his hand, and shivering, she put her cold palm in his.
"Doctor coming back soon? That's fine. You haven't sent him on any newspapers, huh? No, he could get them there."
Other commonplaces, and he left her to work back to the cause of her fright.
With reason again enthroned (this was somewhere near four o'clock in the morning) she could find no other reason than the obvious one. She was afraid of Steppe as a man. Not because he was a man, but because he was the kind of man that he was. He was a better man than Ronnie, she argued. He had principles of sorts. Ronnie had none. Perhaps she would get used to him: up to that moment it did not occur to her to break her engagement, and curiously enough, she never thought of her father. Steppe was sure in his mind that he held her through Dr. Merville. That was not true. Neither sense of honor nor filial duty bound her to her promise, nor was marriage an expiation. She must wear away her life in some companionship. After, was Ambrose Sault, in what shape she did not know or consider. She never thought of him as an angel.