It seems to have been decreed that you should do that part." Was there cynicism in his voice?
It seemed so.

Yet his eyes never left her.

They held her by some electric attraction which she was powerless to break.
She looked at him, white to the lips.
"Are you--in--earnest ?" she asked at last.
Again for an instant she saw his faint smile.
"Don't you know the signs yet ?" he said.

"Surely you have had ample opportunity to learn them!" A tinge of colour crept beneath her pallor.
"No one ever proposed to me--like this before," she said.
His hand was still upon her arm.

It closed with a slow, remorseless pressure as he made quiet reply to her previous question.
"Yes.