"Good-bye." She gave him her hand.
He clasped it for an instant, then raised it, saying, "We did not settle the vexed question of the ring. I am inclined, now I see it again, to think it is a genuine old scarabæus."
A sudden access of shyness, strange and new, came to her. The coldness of his voice did not match the warm clasp of his hand, the nearness of his approach.
She felt that the colour was mounting to her cheeks, and turned her face aside to hide it. And the next instant she felt the touch of his lips on her hair just where it swept away from her white neck.
"Mr. Berend!" she said, breathlessly, and would have started away, but he still held her hand.
"You can either never forgive me," he said, quickly, "or you must do so fully and freely. There can be no half measures between us any longer."
She was speechless; a storm of mixed feelings possessed her.
"I set myself to win you from the first moment that I saw you," he continued, impetuously. "The other task was nothing. I determined it should be both or neither with me. The failure that I spoke of to you last night is redeemed, and I am no longer under a cloud. It was a question of my word, and I have kept it. But for you I should not have done so. My fate is in your hands entirely."
Still no answer.
He drew her a little closer. "I have seen you four times," he went on, "and each time I have said to myself, 'There is only one woman in the world for me, and she is so sweet and lovely and perfect, that I dare only say good-bye to her—unless she tells me to stay.' Anstiss, good-bye!"