"Perhaps I am trying to love him,"
she said to herself. "Anyhow, I must marry him. I can trifle with
my future no longer. I must be free of this slavery to
grandmother. I must be free. He can free me, and I can manage him,
for he is afraid of me."
"Did I hurt you?" Craig was asking.
She nodded.
"I am so sorry," he exclaimed. "But when I touched you I forgot--
everything!"
She smiled gently at him. "I didn't dream you cared for me," she
said.
He laughed with a boisterousness that irritated her. "I'd never
have dared tell you," replied he, "if I hadn't seen that you cared
for me."
Her nerves winced, but she contrived to make her tone passable as
she inquired: "Why do you say that?"
"Oh--the day in the garden--the day I came pleading for Grant. I
saw it in your eyes--You remember."
Margaret could not imagine what he had misinterpreted so
flatteringly to himself. But what did it matter? How like ironic
fate, to pierce him with a chance shaft when all the shafts she
had aimed had gone astray!
She was startled by his seizing her again. At his touch she
flamed. "Don't!" she cried imperiously. "I don't like it!"
He laughed, held her the more tightly, kissed her half a dozen
times squarely upon the lips.
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