“I—I don’t understand it quite. I thought he knew all that was being done. But I had a cablegram from him.”
“You must have written to him.”
“Yes.”
“Before or after you wrote me?”
“Before. And when I got his reply by cable I wrote you.”
“I see. You prefer to marry him?”
“Major Pelham has not asked me to marry him,” replied Elizabeth, with dignity.
“But he will. Elizabeth, you are promised to me. I told you I loved you—not in the flowery style of a young loon, but of a man who has worked and thought and fought and seen enough to make him know his own mind. Of course I can’t coerce you, but the man who gets you away from me may look out for himself. See, the habits of a man’s early life and thought never leave him. My first instinct has always been to take care of my own, and I was bred and made my mark in a country where neither wife-stealing nor sweetheart-stealing is permitted. Sometimes wives and sweethearts were stolen, but it was a dangerous business. Oh, I don’t mean to use a gun; that went out twenty-five years ago. But there are many ways of ruining a man—and a woman, too.”
He spoke quite pleasantly, sitting close to Elizabeth and holding his crape-covered hat in his hand. There was nothing to indicate vengeance in Clavering’s easy, graceful manner and charming voice, but Elizabeth shuddered at the truth of what his speech might mean.
“Now tell me how you feel toward this man Pelham?”