“Haven’t you discovered yet that the children are more to her than I am?” he demanded. “I don’t like second place. I want to stand first in some one’s life. I have no right to say such things to you, of course. But that is how I feel.” He turned to her quickly, and spoke in swift impassioned tones. “Blanche, be a little kind to me. It will cost you nothing, and it will mean so much to me... Will you try?”
“You don’t consider me,” she said, in a low, tremulous voice. “Can’t you see how difficult it is for me to refuse? ... I made a great mistake in ever allowing you to kiss me. I blame myself greatly for that I didn’t consider... Be generous, and leave me alone.”
Her appeal would have moved any one less deliberately selfish to desist; its effect upon Arnott, to whom it appeared tantamount to a confession of weakness, was merely gratifying. He felt pleasantly confident, and was satisfied for the present to rest at this stage in the development of his pursuit.
It was beginning to matter to him more than he realised, the subjugation of this girl’s will to his own. The quest he had begun in idle amusement was becoming a serious business; it was a game no longer, but a matter of deadly earnest. Its very importance to him was hourly increasing her value and desirability in his eyes.
He rose without a word, and offered her his hand and assisted her to her feet. They tramped back over the fine white sand in silence. The girl walked with her gaze fixed on the far horizon, where one blue expanse melted into the other as sea and sky took on the grey shades of evening. Her calm face masked successfully the whirl of emotions which stirred her, but the eyes, staring out to sea, were eloquent of many unquiet thoughts.
When they left the beach and stepped upon the firm road, he broke the silence abruptly.
“Don’t be too hard on me, Blanche,” he said. “I’m a lonely sort of fellow. You fit into the blanks, somehow. I’ve been happier since you came into my life. Don’t begrudge me any scrap of comfort I derive from your society, my dear.”
She made no response to this. She crossed the road with heightened colour and entered the hotel. He followed her, and stood at the foot of the stairs, looking after her as she slowly mounted and passed on to her room. Then he went to his own room to change.
He surveyed himself in the glass, and twisted the ends of his moustache, and smiled complacently. The glass told him that he had passed his first youth; but it further assured him that he was still a good-looking man, and that the lines which showed between his brows and about the corners of his eyes, added the weight of a matured dignity which might very well prove attractive in the eyes of a girl. A girl would naturally feel flattered by attentions from him. Blanche, he knew, was flattered. She was interested in him; but she was fighting against the influence he exercised over her. When she ceased to fight she would prove an easy conquest, he told himself.