He had his way. It was obvious that he meant to have it. He motioned to Dinah with an imperious gesture to precede him, and she obeyed, not daring to glance in her mother's direction.
Mrs. Bathurst said no more. Something in Sir Eustace's bearing seemed to quell her. She watched him go with eyes that shone with a hot resentment under drawn brows. It took Isabel's utmost effort to charm her back to a mood less hostile.
As for Dinah, she led her fiancé back to her father's den in considerable trepidation. To be compelled to resist her mother's will was a state of affairs that filled her with foreboding.
But the moment she was alone with him she forgot all but the one tremendous fact of his presence, for with the closing of the door he had her in his arms.
She clung to him desperately close, feeling as one struggling in deep waters, caught in a great current that would bear her swiftly, irresistibly,--whither?
He laughed at her trembling with careless amusement. "What, still scared, my brown elf? Where is your old daring? Aren't you allowed to have any spirit at all in this house?"
She answered him incoherently, straining to keep her face hidden out of reach of his upturning hand. "No,--no, it's not that. You don't understand. It's all so new--so strange. Eustace, please--please, don't kiss me yet!"
He laughed again, but he did not press her for the moment. "Your father and I have had no end of a talk," he said. "Do you know what has come of it? Would you like to know?"
"Yes," she murmured shyly.
He was caressing the soft dark ringlets that clustered about her neck.
"About getting married, little sweetheart," he said. "You want to get it over quickly and so do I. There's no reason why we shouldn't in fact. How about the beginning of next month? How about April?"
"Oh, Eustace!" She clung to him closer still; she had no words. But still that sense of being caught, of being borne against her will, possessed her, filling her with dread rather than ecstasy. Whither was she going? Ah, whither?
He went on with his easy self-assurance, speaking as if he held the whole world at his disposal. "We will go South for the honeymoon. I've crowds of things to show you--Rome, Naples, Venice. After that we'll come back and go for that summer trip in the yacht I promised you."
"And Isabel too--and Scott?" asked Dinah, in muffled accents.