Part 21 (1/2)
He dropped on his knees before her and seized her hands in his own.
”My darling,” he whispered fiercely. ”I love you enough for us both. Say you'll marry me. Say--”
She wrenched her hands from him. ”Oh!” she cried as if heartbroken, and burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears.
Merriman was maddened beyond endurance by the sight
”What a brute I am!” he gasped. ”Now I've made you cry.”
”For pity's sake! Do stop it! Nothing matters about anything else if only you stop!”
He was almost beside himself with misery as he pleaded with her. But soon he pulled himself together and began to speak more rationally.
”At least tell me the reason,” he besought. ”I know I've no right to ask, but it matters so much. Have pity and tell me, is it someone else?”
She shook her head faintly between her sobs.
”Thank goodness for that anyway. Tell me once again. Is it that you don't like me?”
Again she shook her head.
”You do like me!” he exclaimed breathlessly. ”You do, Madeleine. Say it!
Say that you do!”
She made a resolute effort for self-control.
”You know I do, but--” she began in a tremulous whisper. In a paroxysm of overwhelming excitement he interrupted her.
”Madeleine,” he cried wildly, again seizing her hands, ”you don't--it couldn't be possible that you--that you love me?”
This time she did not withdraw her hands. Slowly she raised her eyes to his, and in them he read his answer. In a moment she was in his arms and he was crus.h.i.+ng her to his heart.
For a breathless s.p.a.ce she lay, a happy little smile on her lips, and then the moment pa.s.sed. ”Oh!” she cried, struggling to release herself, ”what have I done? Let me go! I shouldn't have--”
”Darling,” he breathed triumphantly. ”I'll never let you go as long as I live! You love me! What else matters?”
”No, no,” she cried again, her tears once more flowing. ”I was wrong. I shouldn't have allowed you. It can never be.”
He laughed savagely.
”Never be?” he repeated. ”Why, dear one, it is. I'd like to know the person or thing that could stop it now!”
”It can never be,” she repeated in a voice of despair. ”You don't understand. There are obstacles.”
She argued. He scoffed first, then he pleaded. He demanded to be told the nature of the barrier, then he besought, but all to no purpose. She would say no more than that it could never be.
And then--suddenly the question of the syndicate flashed into his mind, and he sat, almost gasping with wonder as he realized that he had entirely forgotten it! He had forgotten this mysterious business which had occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of almost all else for the past two months! It seemed to him incredible. Yet so it was.
There surged over him a feeling of relief, so that once more he all but laughed. He turned to Madeleine.