“You can hardly expect me to refuse to see Mr. Emmons because you have come home.”
“I do not say what I expect: I ask you to be a little more civil to me. I don’t make it a business proposition, and I don’t make it a threat, like you; but if you really want me to stay at home, and behave myself, there is only one way to do it.”
Nellie looked very grave and then began to smile.
“You know that sounds rather like a threat to me,” she said.
“Then you see the force of bad example. I did not use to threaten my friends.”
“I am not your friend,” she answered quickly.
“What are you?”
If he had expected to hear her reply “your enemy,” he was wrong.
“It seems to me that for six years I have been your slave——”
“I wish I had known it.”