"Do you want me to go and kill him?" he said.
"No!" She sprang up also, quickened to sudden fear by his words. "You're not to go near him," she said, "Noel, promise me you won't! Oh, if you only knew—how much harder—your interference makes things! Don't you see—I've given him my word to consult no one!" She was panting uncontrollably; her hands were fast closed upon his arm. "I refused him once before," she told him feverishly, "and he—he punished me—cruelly. I can't—I daren't—refuse him again!"
"You'd sooner marry him?" Noel stared at her incredulously.
She flung out her hands with a wide, despairing gesture. "Yes—yes—I would sooner marry him!"
The music had stopped. There came the sound of approaching voices. Their privacy was at an end.
Yet for full ten seconds Noel stood widely gazing at the girl before him with eyes in which surprise, hurt pride, and smouldering passion mingled; then very abruptly, as the first chattering couple reached the half-open door, he swung away from her.
"All right!" he said. "Good-bye!"
He went straight out without a glance behind, nearly running into the gay invaders.
Olga, with the instinct to escape notice, turned as swiftly to the window. She went out upon the verandah, blindly groping her way, scarcely aware of her surroundings. And a figure waiting there in the dimness laughed a cruel laugh and roughly caught her.
"'You'd sooner marry him,' eh?" gibed a voice close to her ear. "My dear, that's the wisest resolution you ever made in your life!"