His face grayed as he looked at her.
"Do you think I am not acquainted," Christina went on, "with the story of Lucretia? I could strike a blow like hers! And oh, believe me, like her I should not die in silence!" She felt him start. "Do you suppose I should not tell why I came here? Do you by any chance suppose I should not tell what bait I had from the Inspector of Police? Ah, when we have something to lose, we stumble and make terms. But when we have no longer anything, we are the masters of terms.—Is this my last night?" Christina asked.
"By God!" he said, "you know how to defend yourself!" And his arms dropped at his side.
He was a moment silent, his mouth twitching, his eyes drinking her up. Christina had, in argument, that better sort of eloquence that calls up convincing pictures. Doubtless, he knew she might denounce his theft of the letter. Doubtless he saw her, then, clay-cold; lost to him, utterly. On the other hand, to lose her, now, was a thing outside nature and not to be endured. So that suddenly he broke out in a kind of high, hoarse whisper; "Christina, there's another way! I never meant to marry—but—Christina, shall it be that?"
"What!" she exclaimed. It was a volcanic outcry, not a question. She stretched out her two arms, with the palms of her hands lifted against him, and laughter and amazement seemed to course through her and to wave and shine out of her face, like fire in a wind.
"Christina," he said; "Christina, I will marry you!—Oh, Christina, isn't that the way! There's your ambition! There's your satisfaction! There's the world under your shoe! Christina, will you?"
"Is it possible?" she said. And again—"Is it possible! What! Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck and the girl in the moving-picture show? 'Mr. Ten Euyck' and the sister of a jail-bird! Eh, me, my poor soul, is it as bad as that?" Her laughter died and her brows clouded. "It's a far cry, Ten Euyck, since you stole my kiss on the sly! You laid the first bruise on my soul! You put the first slur and sense of shame into the shabby little girl in the stock-company who had no one to defend her but a boy as poor as herself. What did it feel like, dear sir, that check? We have come a long way since then, but have you forgotten? And does the pure patrician and the representative of high life now lay the cloak of his great name down at my feet? To walk on it, yes! But to pick it up? After all, I think it would be stopping! Ah, my good fellow, I don't jump at it!"
"I know you don't! That's why I want you! I've been jumped at all my life!" Thus Ten Euyck, holding her fast, his face burning darkly under her little blows of speech, and his pulse rising with the sense of battle. "I think I've never known a woman who wouldn't have given her eyes to marry me! I've never taken a step among them without looking out for traps! Christina, I long to do the trapping and the giving, yes, and the taking, for myself! You don't want me; well, I want you! Yes, for my wife! I see it now. You dislike me, you despise me. Well, your dislike doesn't count; believe me, you'd not despise me long! I'd rather see you bearing my name—you, with another man for me to wipe out of your heart, you, as cold as ice and as hard as nails to me,—than any of those soft, waiting women! See, we'll play a great trick on the world! We'll be married to-morrow! We'll sail for Europe. From there we'll send back word we've been married all along. People shall think that when you left me the other night I followed you; that we fooled them from the beginning, and when next they see you, you shall be on my arm! Come, Christina, will not that be a reëntry? Will not the world be vanquished, then?"
"Hush!" she said, with lifted finger. "I thought I heard some one!" She lifted the lamp from the mantelshelf and going to the window held it far out into the darkness with an anxious face. "No!" she breathed. Ten Euyck observed with joy that her manner to him had changed; it had become that of a fellow-conspirator. Up and down the terrace she sent the light, her apprehensive eyes searching the shadows and the bushes. "No!" said she again, "I was wrong."
She came back to him flushed and eager, and setting the light upon the table, he caught her hands. "Remember!" he said, "otherwise I shall stop your sister. And where will your name be then?"