"Good Lord, yes! It was your adventure; it doesn't concern another soul in this wide world."
"You know," said Arlee, locking and unlocking her fingers, "you know, some people wouldn't take it all for granted the way—you do.... And it was very horrid."
"It's over," said he crisply, "except I'd like to pound him to a jelly."
"I couldn't bear to speak of him before," said the girl, "but now it seems all far away and nightmarish.... And I'd like to tell you how it was—a little."
"You needn't."
"I know I needn't." Arlee's tone was suddenly proud. Then she melted again. "But I want you to know. He was—he was trying to make me care for him.... He wasn't really as dreadful as you might think him, only just insane—about me—and utterly unscrupulous. But he did want me to like him and so, when I found out, when Fritzi told me I was in a trap, I tried to play his game. I flirted one day in the garden, at lunch, and made him think—— You see, I had to gain time and try to get word to people. But I hated him so I——" She broke off, the pupils of her fixed eyes big and black with the memory.
"You know I can't—I can't think of you—alone there," came huskily from the young man.
"He never dared to touch me—really—till last night," she said fiercely. "He tried, but I—I held him off. Only he talked to me—Oh, how he talked. Like a river of words.... I hate all those words.... If ever again a man asks me to marry him I don't ever want him to talk about it. I want him just to say two words, Will you?" Her laugh caught quiveringly in her throat.
It taxed all the young man's control to keep his tongue off the echo.
"He just raved," she went on after a pause, "and I had to listen—but last night he was horrible. I could never have got to the candles if his hand hadn't been hurt."