He took her hand but she drew it away. “No,” she said. “It is good of you, Count; I appreciate the honour you offer me. But I cannot accept it.”
“Cannot be my wife?” he exclaimed, with the evil gleam in his eyes which opposition to his will ever brought there. “You do not think what you refuse.”
“A great honour; yes.”
“A man who loves you truly with heart and soul.”
“But whom I cannot love.”
“Cannot?” The draught he was swallowing was not a pleasant one, and his face showed it. “Not for your father’s sake, if not for your own?”
“My father,” she replied, “will hardly wish me to marry a man I cannot love.”
He knew, even better than she, that her step-father was the last man in the world to trouble about that side of the question, providing other considerations were favourable; but he could not say so.
“Your father, I know,” he returned positively, “would be glad to see you Countess Zarka.”
“I am sorry,” she replied simply, leaving the unsatisfactory topic of Harlberg’s views, “but it cannot be.”