“What for? For this morning's work? Oh, no! There's no spite in you for that. You forgave me. You saved me. You got the better of me, too. And anyhow, what good would it be?”
“No, no good,” she admitted.
In her heart she felt that she would not know how to do it; that if it came to a struggle, she would have to drop the dagger and fight with her hands.
“Listen. When we are going about the world together, you shall always call me husband. Do you hear?”
“Yes,” she said bracing herself for the contest, in whatever shape it was coming.
The knife was lying in her lap. She let it slip into the fold of her dress, and laid her forearms with clasped fingers over her knees, which she pressed desperately together. The dreaded thing was out of sight at last. She felt a dampness break out all over her.
“I am not going to hide you, like that good-for-nothing, finicky, sneery gentleman. You shall be my pride and my chum. Isn't that better than rotting on an island for the pleasure of a gentleman, till he gives you the chuck?”
“I'll be anything you like,” she said.
In his intoxication he crept closer with every word she uttered, with every movement she made.
“Give your foot,” he begged in a timid murmur, and in the full consciousness of his power.