If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired; but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to beat.
"I cabled them two words: 'Accept—provisionally,'" he said.
"Oh, what did you mean?"
"Provisionally meant—with your consent."
"My—my consent?"
"Yes—if it is your pleasure."
Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him, gravely; "I may permit you to accept."
So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche—a stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he was not vaulting over it instead.
Having openly and admittedly established her sovereignty, she was happy—so happy that she began to feel that perhaps the victory was not unshared by him.