Dinah’s thumping heart gave a great start and seemed to stop.  “Oh yes,” she gasped desperately.  “Yes, I couldn’t possibly—­be ready sooner.”

He put his face down to hers, as one who breathes the essence of a flower.  “You are ready now,” he said.  “You will never be lovelier than you are to-night.”

She tried to laugh, but his lips were too near.  Her voice quavered piteously.

“Why do I wait for you?” he said, and in his words there beat a fierce unrest.  “Why am I such a fool?  I lie awake night after night consumed with the want of you.  When I sleep, I am always chasing you, you will-o’-the-wisp; and you always manage to keep just out of reach.”  His arms tightened.  His voice suddenly sank to a deep whisper.  “Daphne!  Shall I tell you what I am going to do?”

“What?” panted Dinah.

“I am going to take you right away over the hills to-morrow to a place I know of where it is as lonely as the Sahara, and we will have a picnic there all to ourselves—­all to ourselves, and make up for to-day.”

His lips pressed hers again, but she withdrew herself with a sharp effort.  There was nameless terror in her heart.

“Oh, I can’t, Eustace!  I can’t indeed!” she said, and now she was striving, striving impotently, for freedom.  “I’m going up to town with Isabel.”

“Isabel can wait,” he said.

“No!  No!  I must go.  You don’t understand.  There are no end of things to be done.”  Dinah was as one encircled by fire, searching wildly round for a means of escape.  “I must go!” she said again.  “I must go!”

“You can go the next day,” he said with arrogance.  “I want you to-morrow and I mean to have you.  Look at me, Dinah!”

She glanced at him, compelled by the command of his tone, met the fiery intensity of his look, and sank helpless, conquered.

He kissed her again.  “There!  That’s settled.  You silly little thing!  Why do you always beat your wings against the inevitable?  Do you think you are going to get away from me now?”

She hid her face against his shoulder.  She was almost in tears.  “You—­you hurt me!  You frighten me!” she whispered.

“Do I?” he said, and still in his voice she heard that deep note that made her whole being quiver.  “It’s your own fault, my Daphne.  You shouldn’t run away.”

“I—­I can’t help it,” she said tremulously.  “I sometimes think—­I’m not big enough for you.”

“You’ll grow,” he said.

“I don’t know,” she answered in distress.  “I may not.  And if I do, I feel—­I feel as if I shan’t be myself any longer, but just—­but just—­a bit of you!”

He laughed.  “Daphne,—­you oddity!  Don’t you want to be a bit of me?”

“I’d rather be myself,” she murmured shyly.

His hold was not so close, and she longed, but did not dare, to get off his knee and breathe.  But in that moment there came the sound of a halting step in the drawing-room beyond, and swiftly she raised her head.