"I understand you."

"I wonder."

"You do me."

"Yes--that is just the difficulty."

"I tell you I am at the cross-roads. The fingerboard points the way to me distinctly."

"Does it?"

"It does." He leaned across to her: "Would you risk it?"

"What?" she asked.

"I'll hide nothing. I'll put it all before you. The snubs of your friends. The whisper of a scandal that would grow into a roar. Afraid to open a newspaper, fearing what might be printed in it. Life, at first, in some little Continental village--dreading the pa.s.sers through--keeping out of sight lest they would recognise one. No. It wouldn't be fair to you."

Ethel thought a moment, then answered slowly:

"No, Chris, I don't think it would."

"You see I AM a cad--just a selfish cad!"

"Aren't you?" and she smiled up at him.

"I'll never speak of this again. I wouldn't have NOW--only--I'm distracted to-day--completely distracted. Will you forgive me for speaking as I did?"

"Certainly," said Ethel. "I'm not offended. On the contrary. Anyway, I'll think it over and let you know."

"You will, REALLY?" he asked greedily, grasping at the straw of a hope.

"You will really think it over?"

"I will, really."

"And when she sets me free," he went on, "we could, we could--" He suddenly stopped.

She looked coolly at him as he hesitated and said: "It IS a difficult little word at times, isn't it?"

"WOULD you marry me?" he asked, with a supreme effort.

"I never cross my bridges until I come to them," said Ethel, languidly.

"And we're such a long way from THAT one, aren't we?"

"Then I am to wait?"

"Yes. Do," she replied. "When the time comes to accept the charity of relations, or do something useful for tuppence a week, Bohemian France or Italy--but then the runaways always go to France or Italy, don't they?--Suppose we say Hungary? Shall we?"

He did not answer.

She went on: "Very well. When I have to choose between charity and labour, Bohemian Hungary may beckon me."

He looked at her in a puzzled way. What new mood was this?

"Charity?" he asked. "Labour?"

"Yes. It has come to that. A tiresome bank has failed with all our sixpences locked up in it. Isn't it stupid?"

"Is ALL your money gone?"

"I think so."

"Good G.o.d!"

"Dear mamma knows as little about business as she does about me. Until this morning she has always had a rooted belief in her bank and her daughter. If I bolt with you, her last cherished illusion will be destroyed."

"Let me help you," he said eagerly.

"How?" and she looked at him again with that cold, hard scrutiny. "Lend us money, do you mean?"

He fell into the trap.

"Yes," he said. "I'd do that if you'd let me."

She gave just the suggestion of a sneer and turned deliberately away.

He felt the force of the unspoken reproof:

"I beg your pardon," he said humbly.

She went on as if she had not heard the offensive suggestion: "So you see we're both, in a way, at the crossroads."

He seized her hand fiercely: "Let me take you away out of it all!" he cried.

She withdrew her hand slowly.

"No," she said, "not just now. I'm not in a bolting mood to-day."

He moved away. She watched him. Then she called him to her. Something in the man attracted this strange nature. She could not a.n.a.lyse or define the attraction. But the impelling force was there.

He went to her.

Ethel spoke to him for the first time softly, languorously, almost caressingly:

"Chris! Sometime--perhaps in the dead of night--something will snap in me--the slack, selfish, luxurious ME, that hates to be roused into action, and the craving for adventure will come. Then I'll send for you."

He took her hand again and this time she did not draw it away. He said in a whisper:

"And you'll go with me?"