Perfectly at his ease, inclined to be familiar and jocose, he looked insolently about the lovely old room that had never before held such a suitor for a daughter of that house. Watching her with the complacent eyes of an accepted lover, assuming odious airs of proprietorship such as made one wish to throttle him, he was in no hurry to go. It seemed to her that black and withering years rolled over her head before he could bring himself to rise to take his departure. Death could hardly be colder to a mortal than she had been to this man all the evening, and yet it had not disconcerted him in the least!
He stood for a moment regarding her with the eyes of possession. "And to think that to-morrow night I shall have the right to openly claim you as my promised wife!" he exulted. "You can't realize what it means to a man to be able to say to the world that the most beautiful woman in it is his!"
Directly in front of her hung the portrait of the founder of the house in Carolina, the cavalier who had fled to the new world when Charles Stuart's head fell in the old one. It was a fine and proud face, the eyes frank and brave, the mouth firm and sweet. The girl looked from it to George Inglesby's, and found herself unable to speak. But as she stood before him, tall and proud and pale, the loveliness, the appealing charm of her, went like a strong wine to the man's head. With a quick and fierce movement he seized her hand and covered it with hot and hateful kisses.
At the touch of his lips cold horror seized her. She dragged her hand free and waved him back with a splendid indignation. But Inglesby was out of hand; he had taken the bit between his teeth, and now he bolted.
"Do you think I'm made of stone?" he bellowed, and the mask slipped altogether. There was no hypocrisy about Inglesby now; this was genuine. "Well, I'm not! I'm a man, a flesh-and-blood man, and I'm crazy for you—and you're mine! You're mine, and you might just as well face the music and get acquainted with me, first as last. Understand?
"I'm not such a bad sort—what's the matter with me, anyhow? Why ain't I good enough for you or any other woman? Suppose I'm not a young whippersnapper with his head full of nonsense and his pockets full of nothing, can the best popinjay of them all do for you what I can? Can any of 'em offer you what I can offer? Let him try to: I'll raise his bid!
"Here—don't you stand there staring at me as if I'd tried to slit your throat just because I've kissed your hand. Suppose I did? Why shouldn't I kiss your hand if I want to? It's my hand, when all's said and done, and I'll kiss it again if I feel like it. No, no, beauty, I won't, not if it's going to make you look at me like that! Why, queen, I wouldn't frighten you for worlds! I love you too much to want to do anything but please you. I'd do anything, everything, just to please you, to make you like me! You'll believe that, won't you?" And he held out his hands with a supplicating and impassioned gesture.
"Why can't we be friends? Try to be friends with me, Mary Virginia! You would, if you only knew how much I love you. Why, I've loved you ever since that first day I saw you, after you'd come back home. I was going into the bank, and I turned, and there you were! You had on a gray dress, and you wore violets, a big bunch of them. I can smell them yet. God! It was all up with me! I was crazy about you from the start, and it's been getting worse and worse ... worse and worse!
"You don't know all I mean to do for you, beauty! I'm going to give you this little old world to play with. Nothing's too good for you. Look at me! I'm not an old man yet—I've only just begun to make money for you. Now be a little kind to me. You've got to marry me, you know. Look here: you kiss me good-night, just once, of your own free will, and I swear you shall have anything under the sky you ask me for. Do you want a string of pearls that will make yours look like a child's playpretty? I'll hang a million dollars around that white throat of yours!"
But there came into the girl's eyes that which gave him pause. They stood staring at each other; and slowly the wine-dark flush faded from his face and left him livid. Little dents came about his nose, and his lips puckered as if the devil had pinched them together.