She stiffened in his arms.
“I must go, Louis,” she said. “I can't stay here. I felt very queer downstairs. They all stared so.”
There was a clock on the mantel shelf, and he looked at it. It was a quarter before five.
“One thing is sure, Lily,” he said. “You can't wander about alone, and you are right—you can't stay here. They probably recognized you downstairs. You are pretty well known.”
For the first time it occurred to her that she had compromised herself, and that the net, of her own making, was closing fast about her.
“I wish I hadn't come.”
“Why? We can fix that all right in a jiffy.”
But when he suggested an immediate marriage she made a final struggle. In a few days, even to-morrow, but not just then. He listened, impatiently, his eyes on the clock. Beside it in the mirror he saw his own marred face, and it added to his anger. In the end he took control of the situation; went into his bedroom, changed into a coat, and came out again, ready for the street. He telephoned down for a taxicab, and then confronted her, his face grim.
“I've let you run things pretty much to suit yourself, Lily,” he said. “Now I'm in charge. It won't be to-morrow or next week or next month. It will be now. You're here. You've given them a chance to talk downstairs. You've nowhere to go, and you're going to marry me at once.”
In the cab he explained more fully. They would get a license, and then go to one of the hotels. There they could be married, in their own suite.