"If you choose to think so, I cannot help it."
"Elsie, whatever promise you have made to my mother, whatever promise may have been extorted from you, remember that your first promise and your duty were to me."
I shivered from head to foot, while my heart echoed his words. But I had given my word, and I would not go back from it. Never should my mother's daughter thrust herself unwelcomed in any house.
"Have you nothing to say to me, Elsie?"
"Nothing."
"Mother," he cried, turning flashing eyes to the Marchesa, "what have you been saying to her, by what means have you so transformed her, how have you succeeded in wringing from her a most unjust promise?"
"Stay," I interposed, speaking also in Italian, "no promise has been wrung from me, I gave it freely. Marchesino, it seems you cannot believe it, yet it is true that of my own free will I refuse to marry you, that I take back my unconsidered word of this morning. I am no wife for you, and you no husband for me; a few hours of reflection have sufficed very plainly to show me that."
He stood there, paler than ever, looking at me with a piteous air of incredulity. "Elsie, it is not possible—consider, remember—it is not true!"
His voice broke, wavered, and fell; from the passionate entreaty of his eyes I turned my own way.
"It is true, Marchesino, that I will never, never marry you."