He laughed. There was something in his eyes—something intolerable—that made her avert her own in spite of herself. In desperation she glanced around for Violet.
"She is asleep," said Hunt-Goring.
She turned on him then like a fury. "You mean you have drugged her!" she cried.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Not to that extent. You can wake her if you wish, but I think you had better hear me out first—for her sake also. It is better for all parties that we should come to a clear understanding."
With immense effort she controlled herself. "Very well. What do you wish me to understand?"
"Simply this," said Hunt-Goring. "I know very well that your engagement to Wyndham was simply a move in the game, and that you have not the faintest intention of marrying him. That is so, I think?"
She was silent, taken by surprise.
"I thought so," he continued. "You see, I am not so easy to hoodwink. And now I am going to act up to my villain's rôle and break that engagement of yours—which is no engagement. To put it quite shortly and comprehensibly—I am going to marry you myself."
She stared at him in gasping astonishment. "You!" she said. "You!"
He laughed into her eyes of horror. "You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "You see, Wyndham doesn't really want you, and I do. That is the one extenuating circumstance of my villainy. I want you so badly that I don't much care what steps I take to get you. And so long as you continue to hate me as heartily as you do now, just by so much shall I continue to want you. Is that quite plain?"