"Oh," he cried passionately, "I wish I had the right to—to—" again he wavered.
"Yes?" and Ethel looked straight at him.
"Make love to you straightforwardly." He felt the supreme moment had almost arrived. Now, he thought, he would be rewarded for the long waiting; the endless siege to this marvellous woman who concealed her real nature beneath that marble casing of an assumed indifference.
He waited eagerly for her answer. When it came it shocked and revolted him.
Ethel dropped her gaze from his face and said, with the suspicion of a smile playing around her lips:
"If you had the right to make love to me straightforwardly—you wouldn't do it."
He looked at her in amazement.
"What do you mean?" he gasped. "It's only because you haven't the right that you do it—by suggestion," Ethel pursued.
"How can you say that?" And he put all the heart he was capable of into the question.
"You don't deny it," she said quietly.