A spirit of the lively old Nick was infusing with his youthful blood as he stood there gazing upon her. Elaine, however, either failed to detect its presence, or she failed to understand.
"I?" she said, "Mr. Grenville. I'm sorry. What have I done?"
He could not have done the conventional thing, the deliberate, calm, or expected thing, to save his immortal soul. His nature was far too honest, too unabashed. He came a step nearer—and then she knew, but she could not have moved at the moment had death been the oncoming penalty for remaining where she stood. She had never been so startled in her life.
They two were absolutely alone and unobserved. Of this the impulsive Grenville was aware—and the knowledge had fired a certain madness in his being he was powerless to quell.
"Elaine," he said, as he suddenly caught her unresisting hands, "you've put old Fenton entirely out of the game. You're going to marry me."
She was dimly conscious of pain in her hands, where he crushed them in his ardor. But her shocked surprise was uppermost, as she faced him with blazing eyes.
"Mr. Grenville!" she said. "Mr. Grenville—you—— To say—to speak——"
"Elaine," he interrupted gayly, bright devils dancing in his boyish eyes, "it simply couldn't be helped. We were intended to meet—and were cut out for one another. So the hour must come when you'll pitch old Gerald's ring in the sea by order of the very Fates themselves!"
She snatched away her hands in indignation.
"For shame!" she cried in rising anger, her whole womanly being aflame with resistance to all his growing madness. "You haven't the slightest right in the world——"