"Then I'll take no refusal," he cried, with a ring of triumph and joy in his deep voice. "Look up, Mon, look up, my dear, and tell me that you don't love me. Look up, and tell me with your eyes looking right into mine, and I'll believe you, and let you go. Look up, my darling, and tell me. You can't—you can't. Say—it's useless to try. Quit it, Mon, quit it. You love me, I know. I feel it here, right here in my heart, here, Mon, here," he cried triumphantly. "Right where your beautiful head is resting."
He moved one hand from about her, and deliberately lifted her face so that he could gaze down upon the eyes hidden beneath the deeply fringed lids.
"Come, Mon," he cried tenderly. "Speak up. Say, I can't just hear you. I want to hear you say you don't love me, you hate me for this. No? Then you must kiss me."
He bent his head, and drew her face up to his. And an exquisite joy flooded Monica's heart as he rained burning kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her hair.
So they remained for many minutes. He, speaking words which were ample caresses, she, listening like one in a wonderful, heavenly dream.
But at last she stirred in his arms, and finally released herself. Then, with flushed face and bowed head, she flung herself upon the ottoman beside her with something almost like a sob.
Hendrie waited for a moment. Then he drew up a chair and sat down, and deliberately removed the hands in which her face was buried.
"What is it, Mon?" he inquired anxiously, but in his firm, decided way.
"I—I don't know," she cried, with the desperate helplessness of a child. "You—you've made me love you, and—and it's all wrong—all wrong."
Hendrie smiled confidently.