“How's every little millionaire?” was Tommy Hale's usual greeting.
She knew only one way to handle men, and with the stake of the Spencer money she tried every lure of her experience on Graham. It was always Marion who on cold nights sat huddled against him in the back seat of the Hayden's rather shabby car, her warm ungloved hand in his. It was Marion who taught him to mix the newest of cocktails, and who later praised his skill. It was Marion who insisted on his having a third, too, when the second had already set his ears drumming.
The effect on the boy of her steady propinquity, of her constant caressing touches, of the general letting-down of the bars of restraint, was to rouse in him impulses of which he was only vaguely conscious, and his proposal of marriage, when it finally came, was by nature of a confession. He had kissed her, not for the first time, but this time she had let him hold her, and he had rained kisses on her face.
“I want you,” he had said, huskily.
And even afterward, when the thing was done, and she had said she would marry him, she had to ask him if he loved her.
“I—of course I do,” he had said. And had drawn her back into his arms.
He wanted to marry her at once. It was the strongest urge of his life, and put into his pleading an almost pathetic earnestness. But she was firm enough now.
“I don't think your family will be crazy about this, you know.”
“What do we care for the family? They're not marrying you, are they?”
“They will have to help to support me, won't they?”