'You've no idea how funny that is!' laughed Margaret.
'What?' 'If you could see yourself, and hear yourself at the same time! With
those goggles, and your leather cap and all the rest, you look like the
Frog Footman in Little Alice--or the dragon in Siegfried!
It does very well as long as you are disagreeable, but when you speak
softly and throw intense expression into your voice'--she mimicked his
tone--'it's really too funny, you know! It's just as if Fafnir were to
begin singing "Una furtiva lacrima" in a voice like Caruso's! Siegfried
would go into convulsions of laughter, instead of slitting the dragon's
throat.' 'I wasn't trying to be picturesque just then,' answered Logotheti,
quite unmoved by the chaff. 'I was only expressing my idea. I've known
you about a month. The second time we met, I asked you to marry me, and
I've asked you several times since. As you can't attribute any
interested motive to my determination----' 'Eh?' 'I said, to my determination----' 'Determination? How that sounds!' 'It sounds very like what I mean,' answered Logotheti, in an
indifferent tone.
'But really, how can you "determine" to marry me, if I won't agree?' 'I'll make you,' he replied with perfect calm.
'That sounds like a threat,' said Margaret, her voice hardening a
little, though she tried to speak lightly.
'A threat implies that the thing to be done to the person threatened is
painful or at least disagreeable. Doesn't it? I'm only a Greek, of
course, and I don't pretend to know English well! I wish you would
sometimes correct my mistakes. It would be so kind of you!' 'You know English quite as well as I do,' Margaret answered. 'Your
definition is perfect.' 'Oh! Then would it be painful, or disagreeable to you, to marry me?' Margaret laughed, but hesitated a moment.
'It's always disagreeable to be made to do anything against one's
will,' she answered.
'I'm sorry,' said Logotheti coolly, 'but it can't be helped.' She was not quite sure how it would be best to meet this uncompromising
statement, and she thought it wiser to laugh again, though she felt
quite sure that at the moment there was that quick gleam in his eyes,
behind the goggles, which had more than once frightened her a little.
But he was looking at the road again, and a moment later he had put the
car at full speed along a level stretch. That meant that the
conversation was at an end for a little while. Then an accident
happened.