Her resistance flagged, sank, rose again, and finally died away. After all, why should she hesitate? What was there in such an undertaking as this to send the blood so wildly to her heart?
"Very well," she said faintly at last. "I promise. But—but—I never shall change my mind, Nick—never—never."
He was still looking at her with veiled, impenetrable eyes. He paid no attention to her protest. It was as if he had not so much as heard it.
"You've done your part," he said. "Now hear me do mine. I swear to you—before God—that I will never marry you unless you ask me to."
He bent with the words, and solemnly, reverently, he pressed his lips upon the hand he held.
Muriel waited, half-frightened still, and wholly awestruck. She did not know Nick in this mood.
But when he straightened himself again, the old whimsical smile was on his face, and she breathed a sigh of relief. With a quick, caressing movement he took her by the shoulders.
"That's over then," he said lightly. "Turn over and start another page. Go back to England, go back to school; and let them teach you to be young again."
They were his last words to her. Yet an instant longer he waited, and very deep down in her heart something that was hidden there stirred and quivered as a blind creature moves at the touch of the sun. It awoke a vague pain within her, that was all.
The next moment Nick had turned upon his heel and was departing.