Her superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. 'Ah!' he said, 'what
a wife you would make!' He approached nearer to her. 'You and I,
Miss Racksole, your beauty and wealth and my brains - we could
conquer the world. Few men are worthy of you, but I am one of the
few. Listen! You might do worse. Marry me. I am a great man; I
shall be greater. I adore you. Marry me, and I will save your life.
All shall be well. I will begin again. The past shall be as though
there had been no past.'
'This is somewhat sudden - Jules,' she said with biting contempt.
'Did you expect me to be conventional?' he retorted. 'I love you.'
'Granted,' she said, for the sake of the argument. 'Then what will
occur to your present wife?'
'My present wife?'
'Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.'
'She told you I was her husband?'
'Incidentally she did.'
'She isn't.'
'Perhaps she isn't. But, nevertheless, I think I won't marry you.'
Nella stood like a statue of scorn before him.
He went still nearer to her. 'Give me a kiss, then; one kiss - I won't
ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men
have ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.'
'Coward!' she ejaculated.
'Coward!' he repeated. 'Coward, am I? Then I'll be a coward, and
you shall kiss me whether you will or not.'
He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his
lustrous eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of
the dinghy a few feet away.
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