“Now don’t stop me!  I’m going to put on my hat—­and GO!”

Julia got up to follow her quickly, but quick as she was, Desmond was quicker.  He had his back against the closed door, facing her, and he said: 

“Julia! we’ll stop ragging.  We’re alone for just two minutes.  Let me ask you—­”

“No!” she exclaimed rebelliously.

“Yes, I will!  You couldn’t get the door open if you tried.  Julia, ever since I saw you I believe I’ve wanted you, and every time I’ve tried to tell you you’ve checked me or driven me off somehow.  Yet won’t you think—­”

“I don’t want to.”

“If you’d marry me—­”

“You know you don’t believe in marriage any more than I do.”

“Not for any fools.  But we’re different.  Besides, you’ve altered me; converted me.  You can do absolutely what you like with me.  I’m yours.  Let’s—­let’s get married to-morrow and set an example to ’em all of what married people should be.”

“Are you mad?”

“Yes, about you,” Rokeby replied.  He had lost his naive and lacklustre bearing, his eyes were alight and quick, and his fire warmed her as she stood before him, mutinous yet afraid.

“I shall never marry,” she said defiantly.

“You will, sooner or later,” said Rokeby, “and you will marry me.  I’ll never leave you till you’ve done it, and then—­then I’ll never leave you, either, Julia.”  He advanced upon her, a sudden whirlwind, before whom she cringed back with a helpless sense she had never known before.  He opened his arms, enclosed her in them, and kissed her by force, while she struggled and protested furiously under his lips.

“Do you know,” he asked, “I came here to-night just to kiss you.  Only that!  I didn’t hope for any more satisfaction, but some day I shall have it.  You’re not what you think you are.  And I’ll make you very happy.  As a looker-on I’ve seen a lot of the game called marriage, and I’d know how to make you happy.  Don’t you believe it?”

Released, she retreated to the other side of the room.

“I don’t want to believe it; you’d better go; you’ve behaved disgracefully, and I don’t feel in the least like forgiving you.”

“Very well,” said Rokeby, as Marie’s footsteps sounded on the parquetry of the corridor, “I’m going, but I shall come again, and again!  You won’t get rid of me, I say, till you’ve married me.  And then you’ll never be rid of me.”

He swung round, laughing, and opened the door for Marie.

“Now, Mrs. Kerr, I’m to see you well on your way home.”

She looked from one to the other, at Julia tall and flaming, and Desmond diffusing a kind of electricity.

“I believe you two have been quarrelling; I ought not to have left you alone.”

“We have been quarrelling frightfully.  Miss Winter is never going to allow me here again.”

“Glad you realise that,” said Julia frostily.