"That we marry a week to-day!"
Kelson dropped her hand as if he had been shot. "We can't!" he cried. "The Compact!"
"Oh, damn the Compact!" Lilian Rosenberg said coolly. "You marry me then—or not at all!"
"You are joking—you know what the Compact means!"
"I know what you think it means. For my own part I don't see that you have the slightest reason to fear. The Unknown cannot really harm you. All you have to do is to turn religious. Anyhow you must risk it—that is to say, if you want me."
"It will lead to a quarrel with Hamar," Kelson said desperately. "The Firm will dissolve—and I shan't get a cent more money."
"I'll be content with what you have in the bank now. We can live on the interest of fifty thousand. The hundred thousand you will, of course, settle on me at once."
He was silent. She taunted him, she ridiculed him; she at last lost her temper with him—whereupon he succumbed. The marriage should take place at a registry office within the week.
"There'll be no time for a trousseau!" he said.
"Oh, hang the trousseau!" she said. "I shall have the hundred thousand pounds. And now for a word of advice. Be sure that you do not let Hamar get any inkling of our approaching marriage, and be most careful to avoid doing anything that might arouse his suspicions. It isn't that I'm afraid of him—but I don't want rows—I'm sick to death of them!"