"Made her an offer of marriage?" snarled the other, wheeling round.
"I kissed her—"
Mr Pennycuick snapped his thumb and finger derisively.
"THAT kind of kiss!—as good as asked for."
"It was not as good as asked for. Your daughter is not that kind of woman."
"I thought not, but she says she is."
"Pay no heed to what she says. Her morbid conscientiousness runs away with her. I tell you the plain truth, as man to man, without any hysterics—I kissed her of my own free will—your daughter, sir. And I am here now to stand by my act. If she will forgive my—my tardiness—as you know, I was in no position then to aspire to marriage with a lady of this family; I am not now, but I am better off than I was—will you give your consent to our engagement?"
"No!" roared Mr Pennycuick, looking as if threatened with an apoplectic fit. "I'll see her engaged to the devil first!"
Like Mary, he seemed to take the generous offer as a personal insult. Guthrie Carey, conscious of doing the duty of a gentleman at enormous cost, could not understand why.