There was silence for a moment.
"What are you going to do with your life now?" he asked, presently. It was a bald question.
"I shall become an adventuress," I answered, deliberately.
"A what?" he exclaimed, his black eyebrows contracting.
"An adventuress. Is not that what it is called? A person who sees life, and has to do the best she can for herself."
He laughed. "You strange little lady!" he said, his irritation with me melting. And when he laughs you can see how even his teeth are; but the two side ones are sharp and pointed, like a wolf's.
"Perhaps, after all, you had better have married me!"
"No, that would clip my wings," I said, frankly, looking at him straight in the face.
"Mr. Barton tells me you propose leaving here on Saturday. I beg you will not do so. Please consider it your home for so long as you wish—until you can make some arrangements for yourself. You look so very young to be going about the world alone!"
He bent down and gazed at me closer—there was an odd tone in his voice.