Her irresponsiveness stung him. He crossed to her quickly and laid a masterful hand on her chair. “Have you thought over what I told you?—about what I feel—about what Uncle Dick wished?”
She answered him then, and anything but indifferently. “Not now, Stephen,” she said impatiently, “I can’t talk of that now.”
“But you must.”
“Must?”
Her voice should have warned him. There was anger in it, contempt even, indignation, no quarter. And it was final. Not so do coquettes parry and fence and invite. Not so do women who love, or are learning to love, postpone the hour they half fear, the joy they hesitate to reveal or confess. Perfectly, too, Stephen caught the portents of her tone, but he was past warning. Love and impatience goaded him. He had reached his Rubicon, and he must cross it, or go down in it, engulfed and defeated. A vainer man would have taken alarm and retreated definitely from sure discomfiture and chagrin. A man who loved less would have spared the girl and himself. A wiser man, more self-contained, would have waited. Stephen Pryde plunged on, and plunged badly—every word an offense, every tone provocation.
“Can’t you see how vital this is to me?” he demanded roughly, his voice as impatient as hers had been, and altogether lacking her calm. “I must know what you are going to do, I must know.” He could not even deny himself the dire word the most obnoxious a man can use to a woman. A blow from his hand, if she loves him enough, a woman may forgive, in time half forget—some women (the weakest type and the strongest)—but “must” never.
Helen Bransby smiled, and looked up at Pryde squarely, with a sigh of resignation—and of something else too. “Oh! if you must know now, if I ‘must’ tell you, I must.” Then the longing in his face smote her, and the thought of her father quickened her gentleness, as it always did, and she stayed her sting. “Are you certain,” she concluded earnestly, almost kindly, “that it was Daddy’s wish that we should be married—you and I?”
“Quite certain,” Pryde answered in a firm voice. But his hands were trembling.
“I want to do everything he wanted,” Helen said wistfully.
The man turned away, even took a few steps from her, to grapple a moment with his own mad emotion. He felt victory in his grasp—victory hot on his craven fear, victory after despair, victory after hunger and thirst. He swung round and came back reaching towards her—his face transfigured, his voice clarion sweet, his eyes flashing, and brimming. “Helen——”