It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever known, that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.
"Please, please don't hold my hand," I said. "It—it makes me not able to behave nicely."
"Darling," he whispered, "then it shows that you like me, and I sha'n't let go until you tell me every little bit."
"Oh, I can't, I can't!" I felt too tortured, and yet, waves of joy were rushing over me. That is a word, "darling," for giving feelings down the back.
"Evangeline," he said, quite sternly, "will you answer this question, then: Do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very well, I love you."
Oh, the wild joy of hearing him say that! What in the world did anything else matter? For a moment there was a singing in my ears, and I forgot everything but our two selves. Then the picture of Christopher waiting for me, with his cold cynic's face and eyes blazing with passion, rushed into my vision, and the duke's critical, suspicious, disapproving scrutiny, and I felt as if a cry of pain, like a wounded animal, escaped me.
"Darling, darling, what is it? Did I hurt your dear little hand?" Lord Robert exclaimed, tenderly.
"No," I whispered, brokenly; "but I cannot listen to you. I am going back to Claridge's now, and I am going to marry Mr. Carruthers."
He dropped my hand as if it stung him.
"Good God! Then it is true," was all he said.