Again the shaking gesture. "I can't stand this!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to!"
His voice became more abject. "Wait a minute! You don't understand. All I want is a word. You see how I am suffering. A word from you will end it!"
Pen was too startled to be angry any more. A terribly dangerous situation faced her, and she needed all her wits with which to meet it.
He took heart from her silence, her apparent uncertainty. "I'm asking you to marry me," he said with a touch of his old arrogance. "Do you get it? Mrs. Ernest Riever. Think what it means.... What do you say?"
"I won't answer you now," she murmured.
"You've got to answer me!" he said violently. "I've got to know how you stand towards me!"
She was silent.
"Look at it as a young fellow would look at a chance to advance himself," he rushed on. It was one kind of love-making. "Look what I have to offer you. A place in the sun! A place every living woman would envy you! Isn't that sweet to you? And by God! you'd grace it too, with your beauty and your high ways. You weren't shaped to wear print dresses, Pen. Think, think what you'd be. A sort of queen. A queen without any responsibilities. Carried about like a queen wherever you wanted to go, with an army to wait on you. Your slightest wish granted!"
"I don't want to be a queen," murmured Pen a little dizzied by this rush of words.