"Oh, I expect I could be ready sooner than that," said Dinah naïvely.
"You could?" He smiled upon her. "Well, next week then! What do you say to next week?"
But she shrank again at that. "Oh no! Not possibly! Not possibly! You--you're laughing!" She looked at him accusingly.
He caught her to him. "You baby! You innocent! Yes, I'm going to kiss you. Where will you have it? Just anywhere?"
He held her and kissed her, still laughing, yet with a heat that made her flinch involuntarily; kissed the pointed chin and quivering lips, the swift-shut eyes and soft cheeks, the little, trembling dimple that came and went.
"Yes, you are mine--all mine," he said. "Remember, I have a right to you now that no one else has. Not all the mammas in the world could come between us now."
She laughed, half-exultantly, half-dubiously, peeping at him through her lowered lashes. "I wonder if you'll still say that when--when you've seen--my mother," she murmured.
He kissed her again, kissed anew the dimples that showed and vanished so alluringly. "You will see presently, my Daphne," he said. "But I'm going to have you, you know. That's quite understood, isn't it?"
"No more running away," he insisted. "That's past and done with."
She gave him a fleeting smile. "I couldn't if--if I wanted to."
She clung to him suddenly with a little movement that was almost convulsive. "Oh, are you sure--quite sure--that you wouldn't rather marry Rose de Vigne?"
He uttered his careless laugh. "My dear child, there are plenty of Roses in the world. There is only one--Daphne--Daphne, the fleet of foot--Daphne, the enchantress!"
She clung to him a little faster. "And there is only one Apollo," she murmured. "Apollo the magnificent!"
"We seem to be quite a unique couple," laughed Eustace, with his lips upon her hair.
When they went down the hill again to the hotel, Dinah felt as if she were treading on air. The whole world had magically changed for her. Fears still lurked in the background, such fears as she did not dare to turn and contemplate; but she herself had stepped into such a blaze of sunshine that she felt literally bathed from head to foot in the glow.
Her dread of returning to the old home-life had dwindled to a mere shadow. Sir Eustace's absolute confidence on the subject of his desirability as a husband had accomplished this. There would be paens of rejoicing, he told her, and she had actually begun to think that he spoke the truth. She was quite convinced that her mother would be pleased. It was Cinderella and the prince indeed. Who could be otherwise?