"Let me go—let me go!" she cried with sudden fury, thrusting him from her, breathless, her eyes blinded with tears.
"Tell me that you love me!" he cried with desperate pleading.
The splendid young figure faced him tense, quivering with rage.
"How dare you take me in your arms like that without a word?" Her eyes were flashing, her breast rising and falling with quick furious breathing.
He seized her hand and held it with cruel force. Her eyes blazed and he dropped it. She was thinking of the scene with his slender chivalrous brother. She could feel the soft kiss on the tips of her fingers and the blood surged to her face at the thought of this man's lips pressed on hers in mad, strangling passion without so much as by your leave! She could tear his eyes out.
He looked at her now in a hopeless stupor of regret.
"Forgive me, Betty," he faltered. "I—I couldn't help it."
Her eyes held his in a cold stare:
"I suppose that's all any woman has ever meant to you, and you took me for granted——"
He lifted his hand in protest.