Because you are too lordly.’”
“Lordly,” he muttered, “I am your slave. Look here,” and he cautiously lifted a damp curl from her forehead. “You are bathed in perspiration. So much for being a woman, for jumping at conclusions, and landing in a paroxysm of jealousy.”
The girl was forced to call in her wandering gaze. He would stand there until doomsday if she did not; and, with a provoking uplift of her light brows, she looked down into the two black penetrating eyes that pierced her face like lances.
“It was jealousy,” he said, with satisfaction. “You thought for an instant that I was speaking of some other woman.”
“I was not jealous. I was glad.”
“Yes, you were,” he said, doggedly, “and I am glad you were—and listen. Circumstances have arisen that make it necessary for me to give you the protection of my name. You trust me fully—”
“Not that far!” she exclaimed, measuring off an inch on one of her pink fingers.
He laughed, seized the finger, and carried it to his lips. “I cannot explain, but we must be married at once. It will only be an empty ceremony. You are not ready yet to bow your wilful young neck under the yoke of matrimony.”
“I shall not have a phantom marriage,” she said, indignantly. “Go away, you bad sea-dog.”
“Then let it be a real one,” he said, eagerly. “Give up your will to me. Stop being a wilful spoiled child of a fiancée, and become a loving, sensible little wife. You can if you want to. There is nothing but the frail barrier of your will between us. Sometimes I think I would like to break it, but—” suddenly pausing. “What a fool I am! One might as well rhapsodise to a marble statue as to you, icy, passionless child that you are. Perhaps when you get away from your present dead-and-alive surroundings—”