She listened like one stunned
"I am terribly in love with you," I added
"Oh!" she then exclaimed. Her delicate pink skin became a fiery red. She looked down and shook her head with confused stiffness.
"I see you're taken aback. Take a seat; get your bearings," I said, lightly, pulling up a chair that stood near by, "and say, 'Yes.'"
"Why, that's impossible!" she said, with an awkward smile, without seating herself. "I need not tell you that I have long since changed my mind about you—"
"I am no more repellent, am I?" I jested
"No. Not at all," she returned, with another smile. "But what you say is quite another thing. I am very sorry, indeed." She made to move away from me, but I checked her
"That does not discourage me," I said. "I'll just go on loving you and waiting for a favorable answer. You are still unjust to me. You don't know me well enough. Anyhow, I can't give you up. I won't give you up. ("That's it," I thought. "I am speaking like a man of firm purpose.") "I am resolved to win you."
"Oh, that's entirely out of the question," she said, with a gesture of impatience and finality. And, bursting into tears of child-like indignation, she added: "Father assured me you would never hint at such a thing—never.
If you mean to persist, then—"