He might as well have sneered at the firelight.
“I have seen enough to tell me that you love me because you cannot bear to be resisted, and want to master me. You liked me at first because I treated you and all men with indifference. You resolved to have me because I seemed unattainable. This is all your love means.”
He felt a strong inclination to stoop down and kiss the little lips that defied him; but he restrained himself. He said, quietly: “And you loved me—”
“Because you are strong. You are the first man I ever was afraid of. And”—a dreamy look came into her face—“because I like to experience, I like to try. You don’t understand that.”
He smiled.
“Well, since you will not marry me, may I inquire what your intentions are, the plan you wrote of. You asked me to come and hear it, and I have come.”
“I said, ‘Come if you wish.’ If you agree to it, well; if not, I marry on Monday.”
“Well?”
She was still looking beyond him at the fire.
“I cannot marry you,” she said slowly, “because I cannot be tied; but if you wish, you may take me away with you, and take care of me; then when we do not love any more we can say good-bye. I will not go down country,” she added; “I will not go to Europe. You must take me to the Transvaal. That is out of the world. People we meet there we need not see again in our future lives.”