He replied that this was all nonsense and derided Meredith as a bookworm and a dreamer. For his own part, hadn't he money enough to provide for them both? If she wouldn't take half his money, she didn't love him. That was flat!
"I do love you!" cried Janet, with more visible emotion than before. "That's why I mustn't marry you."
He rose with a wild movement.
"I must save myself—and you, too!" he murmured. "I'm going abroad by the first steamer."
But these words were dashed with insurgent passion. Handsome, hypnotic, intense, his whole being vibrated towards her. She surrendered incontinently.
"Not without me!" she said, enchaining him in her arms.
He kissed her tempestuously.
"It's a daring step, and a perilous one," he said, more in weak protest than in forceful remonstrance.
"No, no, no!" she cried, as with a gesture of ecstasy she hid her face on his shoulder.
PART IV