“You know my conditions for interfering?”
“Yes.”
“Do you accept them?”
“Yes.”
“You will marry me?”
“Yes.”
Oh, those horrible answers! The unhappy woman gave them in a sort of awful torpor, refusing even to understand what she was promising. Let him start first, let him snatch Gilbert from the engine of death whose vision haunted her day and night.... And then . . . and then . . . let what must come come....
He burst out laughing:
“Oh, you rogue, it’s easily said!... You’re ready to pledge yourself to anything, eh? The great thing is to save Gilbert, isn’t it? Afterward, when that noodle of a Daubrecq comes with his engagement-ring, not a bit of it! Nothing doing! We’ll laugh in his face!... No, no, enough of empty words. I don’t want promises that won’t be kept: I want facts, immediate facts.”
He came and sat close beside her and stated, plainly: