"You'll have to run away with her; and like the knights of old carry off the lady of your choice."
"The knights of old didn't have to go before a judge and jury and serve seven years at Dartmoor for their sins," he said unpleasantly.
She was sitting on a low chair overlooking the sea, whittling a twig with a silver-handled knife she had taken from her bag—a favourite occupation of hers in moments of cogitation.
"All the ladies of old didn't go to the police," she said. "Some of them were quite happy with their powerful lords, especially delicate-minded ladies who shrank from advertising their misfortune to the readers of the Sunday press. I think most women like to be wooed in the cave-man fashion, Marcus."
"Is that the kind of treatment you'd like, Jean?"
There was a new note in his voice. Had she looked at him she would have seen a strange light in his eyes.
"I'm merely advancing a theory," she said, "a theory which has been supported throughout the ages."
"I'd let her go and her money, too," he said. He was speaking quickly, almost incoherently. "There's only one woman in the world for me, Jean, and I've told you that before. I'd give my life and soul for her."
He bent over, and caught her arm in his big hand.
"You believe in the cave-man method, do you?" he breathed. "It is the kind of treatment you'd like, eh, Jean?"