“But I command, sir!”
“And I refuse to obey.”
“Oh—oh, this is outrageous——” she began, frantically.
Suddenly his gloved left hand dropped from the reins and closed over one of hers. The feverish clasp and the command in his eyes compelled her to look up into his face quickly. There she saw the look she feared, admired, deserved.
“There was a time when you wanted to be with me and with no other. I have not forgotten those days, nor have you. They were the sweetest days of your life and of mine. It is no age since I held this hand in mine, and you would have gone to the end of the world with me. It is no age since you kissed me and called me a king. It is no age since you looked into my eyes with an expression far different from the one you now have. You remember, you remember, Dorothy.”
She was too surprised to answer, too overcome by the suddenness of his assault to resist. The power she had undertaken to estimate was in his eyes, strong, plain, relentless.
“And because you remember I can see the hardness going from your eyes, the tenderness replacing it. The flush in your cheek is not so much of anger as it was, your heart is not beating in rebellion as it was, and all because you cannot forget—you will not forget.”
“This is madness,” she cried, shivering as with a mighty chill.
“Madness it may be, Dorothy, but—well, because we have not forgotten the days when we were sweethearts, I am claiming this day of you and you must give it to me for the same reason. You must say to me that you give it willingly,” he half whispered, intensely. She could only look helplessly into his eyes.
From the rumble Turk saw nothing, neither did he hear.