His voice sent a quiver through her. She had never felt so desperately scared and ashamed in all her healthy young life. Yet she yielded to the insistence of his touch and tone, and met the searching scrutiny of his eyes with all her courage. He was not angry, she saw; nor was he contemptuous. More than that she could not read. She lowered her eyes and waited. Her pulses throbbed wildly, but still she kept herself from trembling.
"Is this a definite offer?" he asked at last.
"Yes," she answered. Her voice was very low, but it was steady.
He waited a second, and she felt the mastery of the eyes she could not meet.
"Forgive me," he said, then; "but are you actually in earnest?"
"Yes," she said again, and marvelled at her own daring.
His hold tightened upon her wrists. "You are a very brave girl," he said.
There was a baffling note in his tone, and she glanced up involuntarily. To her intense relief she saw the quizzical, kindly look in his eyes again.
"Will you allow me to say," he said, "that I don't think you were created for a consolation prize?"
He spoke somewhat grimly, but his tone was not without humour. Molly sat quite still in his hold. She had a feeling that she had grossly insulted him, that she had made it his right to treat her exactly as he chose.