It was easy enough to rebuff him, the easier as his
physical proximity always roused in her a vague instinct of resistance;
but it was hard so to temper the rebuff with promise that the game of
suspense should still delude him. He put it to her at last, standing
squarely before her, his batrachian sallowness unpleasantly flushed,
and primitive man looking out of the eyes from which a frock-coated
gentleman usually pined at her.
"Look here--the installment plan's all right; but ain't you a bit behind
even on that?" (She had brusquely eluded a nearer approach.) "Anyhow,
I think I'd rather let the interest accumulate for a while. This is
good-bye till I get back from Europe."
The announcement took her by surprise. "Europe? Why, when are you
sailing?"
"On the first of April: good day for a fool to acknowledge his folly.
I'm beaten, and I'm running away."
She sat looking down, her hand absently occupied with the twist of
pearls he had given her. In a flash she saw the peril of this departure.
Once off on the Sorceress, he was lost to her--the power of old
associations would prevail. Yet if she were as "nice" to him as he
asked--"nice" enough to keep him--the end might not be much more to her
advantage. Hitherto she had let herself drift on the current of their
adventure, but she now saw what port she had half-unconsciously been
trying for. If she had striven so hard to hold him, had "played" him
with such patience and such skill, it was for something more than her
passing amusement and convenience: for a purpose the more tenaciously
cherished that she had not dared name it to herself.
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