'Only in one way. I have told you—'
'Give me your hand.' He came quite close to her.
She held her hands behind her and looked at him defiantly, her head high, her eyes cold.
'If you want my hand—you must keep it,' she said.
She was very handsome just then, and his heart beat faster. There was a tremor in his voice when he spoke again, and his fingers shook as he laid them lightly on her shoulder, barely touching her. There is a most tender vibration in any genuine passion under control, just before it breaks out. Aliandra saw it, but she distrusted him, and believed that he might be acting.
'I cannot bear this much longer,' he said. 'It is killing me.'
'There is no reason why it should,' she answered coldly. 'You know what you have to do. I will marry you whenever you please.'
He was silent. The vision of Miss Lizzie Slayback with her millions, and with all his own future, rose before him. He seemed to see it all behind the handsome head, on the ugly flowered paper of the wall. That stake was too heavy, and he could not afford to risk it. Yet, as he met Aliandra's hard eyes and cruelly set mouth, her resistance roused him as nothing ever had before.
'You hesitate still,' she said scornfully. 'I do not think your love will kill you.'