'Victoria,' said Cairns again, 'I want you. Come away from all this labour and pain; let me make you happy.'
She looked at him, a question in her eyes.
'As free man and woman,' he stammered. Then more firmly:
'I'll make you happy. You'll want nothing. Perhaps you'll even learn to like me.'
Victoria said nothing for a minute. The proposal did not offend her; she was too broken, too stupefied for her inherent prejudices to assert themselves. Morals, belief, reputation, what figments all these things. What was this freedom of hers that she should set so high a price on it? And here was comfort, wealth, peace—oh, peace. Yet she hesitated to plunge into the cold stream; she stood shivering on the edge.
'Let me think,' she said.
Cairns pressed her closer to him. A little of the flame that warmed his body passed into hers.
'Don't hurry me. Please. I don't know what to say. . . .'
He bent over with hungry lips.
'Yes, you may kiss me.'