He paused, as though he expected her to volunteer some reply. But she merely eyed him with a look of steady indifference.
“You understand, Ann?” he said, with a species of urgency in his tones.
“It sounds quite simple,” she replied shortly. “I think I understand plain English—though what you say doesn’t interest me. Do you mind releasing my wrist, now?”
“You won’t run away if I do?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Where could I run to—on the yacht? Besides, I’ve no wish for every one to know about this ridiculous scene,” she added scornfully, with a downward glance at her prisoned wrist.
His eyes glinted as he released his hold, but he allowed the contemptuous speech to pass without remark. She lifted her arm, frictioning her wrist where his grip had scored a red mark round it. A tumult of anger against him seethed inside her. Her lips felt soiled and she put up her hand and rubbed them distastefully. He interpreted the action with lightning swiftness.
“No,” he said, a note of grim triumph in his voice. “You can’t undo it.”
“I wish,” she said with quiet intensity, “I wish I’d never set foot on board your yacht.”
“It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference,” he assured her unconcernedly. “If it hadn’t happened here, it would have happened somewhere else. Just as it doesn’t matter in the least your refusing me—by the way, I suppose I’m to understand you have refused me?”—mockingly.