"Wait," he said gently. They were quite alone. The stream of daylight from the distant French windows barely reached to this quiet spot. She saw the most wonderful light in his grey eyes; her lips parted in quick, timorous confusion. "I love you. I am sorry for what I did down there. I couldn't help it--nor could you. Yet I took a cruel advantage of you. I know what you've been thinking, too. You have been saying to yourself that I wanted to see how far I could go--don't speak! I know. You are wrong. I've absolutely worshipped you since those first days in Thorberg--wildly, hopelessly--day and night. I was afraid of you--yes, afraid of you because you are a princess. But I've got over all that, Genevra. You are a woman--a living, real woman with the blood and the heart and the lips that were made for men to crave. I want to tell you this, here in the light of day, not in the darkness that hid all the truth in me except that which you might have felt in my kiss." "Please, please don't," she said once more, her lip trembling, her eyes full of the softness that the woman who loves cannot hide. "You shall not go on! It is wrong!" "It is not wrong," he cried passionately. "My love is not wrong. I want you to understand and to believe. I can't hope that you will be my wife--it's too wildly improbable. You are not for such as I. You are pledged to a man of your own world--your own exalted world. But listen, Genevra--see, my eyes call you darling even though my lips dare not--- Genevra, I'd give my soul to hear you say that you will be my wife. You _do_ understand how it is with me?" The delicious sense of possession thrilled her; she glowed with the return of her self-esteem, in the restoration of that quality which proclaimed her a princess of the blood. She was sure of him now! She was sure of herself. She had her emotions well in hand. And so, despite the delicious warmth that swept through her being, she chose to reveal no sign of it to him.