He drew nearer to her, but he made no attempt to touch her. Only the flame of his passion seemed to reach her, to scorch her, for she made a slight movement away from him.
She looked at him doubtfully. "I still don't know what to say," she said.
His face altered. With a mighty effort he subdued the fiery impulse that urged him to override her doubts and fears, to take and hold her in his arms, to make her his with or without her will.
He became in a trice the kindly, winning personality that all his world knew and loved. "Sure then, you're not afraid of me?" he said, as though he softly cajoled a child. "It wouldn't be yourself at all if you were, you that could tread me underfoot like a centipede and not be a mite the worse."
She smiled a little, smiled and uttered a sudden quick sigh. "Don't you think you are rather a fool, Pat?" she said. "I gave you credit for more shrewdness. You certainly had more once."
"What do you mean?" There was a sharp note of pain in Hone's voice.
She moved restlessly across the room and paused with her back to him. "None but a fool would conclude that because a woman is pretty she must be good as well," she said, a tremor of bitterness in her voice. "Why do you take it for granted in this headlong fashion that I am all that man could desire?"
"You are all that I want," he said.
She shook her head. "The woman who lived inside me died long ago," she said, "and a malicious spirit took her place."
"None but yourself would ever dare to say that to me," said Hone. "And I won't listen even to you. Princess—"