It was evident that he belonged to the type that found its amusement in making love to married women; but—they were within the rays of a lamp, and sauntering—she looked up at this pleasant exponent indulgently. She was quite safe, and it was by no means detestable at the age of forty-two to be coveted by the cleverest young man in Brabant County.
The smile left her lips and she experienced a faint vibration of the nerves as she met the unsmiling eyes bent close above her own.
Rush was almost drab in colour, but the bones of his face were large and his eyes were deeply set and well apart, intensely blue and brilliant. It was one of those narrow rigid faces the exigencies of his century and country have bred, the jaw long and almost as salient as that of a consumptive, the brow bold, the mouth hard set, the cheeks lean and cut with deep lines, the whole effect not only keen and clever but stronger than any man has consistently been since the world began. The curious contradiction about this type of American face is that it almost invariably looks younger than the years that have contributed to the modelling of it; such men, particularly if smoothly shaven as they usually are, look thirty at forty; even at fifty, if they retain their hair, appear but little older. When Rush's mouth was relaxed it could smile charmingly, and the eyes fill with playfulness and vivacity, just as his strident American voice could move a jury to tears by the tears that were in it.
At this moment all the intensity of which his striking features were capable was concentrated in his eyes.
"I'm not going to make love to you as matters stand," he said, his voice dry with emotion. "But I want you to divorce Dave Balfame and marry me. Sooner or later you will be driven to it—"
"Never! I'll never be a divorced woman. Never! Never!"
His steady gaze wavered and he sighed. "You said that as if you meant it. You think you are intellectual, and you haven't outgrown one of the prejudices of your Puritan grandmothers—who behaved themselves because women were scarce and even better treated than they are now, and because they would have been too mean to spend money on a divorce suit if divorces had come into fashion elsewhere."
"You are far from complimentary!" Mrs. Balfame raised her head stiffly, not a little indignant at this natural display of sheer masculinity. She would have withdrawn her arm and hastened her steps but he held her back.
"I don't mean to be uncomplimentary. Only, you ought to be so much more advanced than you are. I repeat, I shall not make downright love to you, for I intend to marry you one of these days. But I shall say what I choose. How much longer do you think you can go on living like this?—with a man you must despise and from whom you must suffer indignities—and in this hole—"