“Please don’t, Ted.”
“I’m crazy about you, Freda. I’ve never seen a girl like you. There aren’t any girls like you. Never have been any. I never knew what it meant to be in love before.”
And all the time that arm tighter, heavier. His face seemed to Freda to thicken. She discovered that she hated it. Abruptly she wrenched herself free. But he followed her and unfortunately she had gone to an even darker corner.
He pulled her to him and kissed her. It was the first time he had done it and it seemed to exhilarate him.
There followed one of the worst half hours of Freda’s life. She kept wondering what had happened to the others. She was conscious of herself growing disheveled. She realized that he was in earnest, that he was excited past his own control.
In desperation she cried at him—
“But I don’t care for you at all.”
“That makes it more interesting to a man,” said Ted, gallantly. “Anyway, I’ll never give up.”
“And,” thought Freda, suddenly, with directness, “he hasn’t said one word about marrying.” With a kind of vague desire to sound the situation fully, she said—
“Do you really want me to marry you?”