"I'm not going to listen. You've said you'll marry me. I don't want to hear anything about the other men who were. I'm the man who is. And I'm going to drive you straight back to Mallow and tell everybody about it. Then I'll feel sure of you."
Faced by the irrevocableness of her action, Nan was overtaken by dismay. How recklessly, on the impulse of the moment, she had bartered her freedom away! She felt as though she were caught in the meshes of some net from which there was no escaping. A voice inside her head kept urging: "Time! Time! Give me time!"
"Please, Roger," she began with unwonted humility. "I'd rather you didn't tell people just yet."
But Trenby objected.
"I don't see that there's anything gained by waiting," he said doggedly.
"Time! . . . Time!" reiterated the voice inside Nan's head.
"To please me, Roger," she begged. "I want to think things over a bit first."
"It's too late to think things over," he answered jealously. "You've given me your promise. You don't want to take it back again?"
"Perhaps, when you know everything, you'll want me to."
"Tell me 'everything' now, then," he said grimly, "and you'll soon see whether I want you to or not."