“But I shall—I shall be angry.”
“You have had your way too long. You get whatever you want. It is very demoralizing.”
“But I never got my gold dollar.” This was unwise.
“No; you never will.”
She was silent now, foreseeing trouble.
Meanwhile he sat on the ferns at her feet. As she spoke, her color-box fell. Carington set it aside. She made no further remonstrance.
“What o’clock is it, Mr. Carington?”
“You are here till six. You can’t get away. What is the use of asking the time?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. It is my hour, Rose Lyndsay.” And he looked up. “For a year we have been seeing one another in the midst of a fog of conventionalities, and the game has been all in your hands. One cannot love and respect a woman and wish to force her to abrupt decisions, and she can always escape. I have waited.”