“Loose my hands, brute.”
“For you to scratch my face, my red-haired pussy. Not such a fool. I know your sweet temper of old. If I let go, will you be quiet?”
Marjorie made no reply, but she ceased to struggle and stood there with her wrists held, the white skin growing black—a prisoner—till, with a contemptuous laugh, he threw the little arms from him.
“Go and tell Glynne everything you know—everything you have seen, if you like,” he said harshly, “only tell everything about yourself too, and then come back to me to be loved, my sweet, amiable, little white-faced tigress. I’m not afraid though, Madge. You can’t open those pretty lips of yours, can you? It might make others speak in their defence.”
“Brute,” she whispered as she gazed at him defiantly and held out her bruised wrists.
“Brute, am I? Well, let sleeping brutes lie. Don’t try to rouse them up for fear they should bite. Go to your room and bathe your pretty red eyes after having a good cry, and then come and tell me that you think it is best to cry truce, and forget all the past.”
“Never, Rob, dear,” she said with a curious smile. “Go on; but mind this: you shall never marry Glynne Day.”
“Sha’n’t I? We shall see. I think I can pull that off,” he cried with a mocking laugh. “But if I don’t, whom shall I marry?”
She turned from him slowly, and then faced round again as she reached the door.
“Me,” she said quietly; and the next minute Robert Rolph was alone.