I made a desperate effort to free my hand from his grasp.
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave me, Helen?” he said, with a smile of the most provoking self-sufficiency. “You don’t hate me, you know.”
“Yes, I do—at this moment.”
“Not you. It is Annabella Wilmot you hate, not me.”
“I have nothing to do with Annabella Wilmot,” said I, burning with indignation.
“But I have, you know,” returned he, with peculiar emphasis.
“That is nothing to me, sir,” I retorted.
“Is it nothing to you, Helen? Will you swear it? Will you?”
“No I won’t, Mr. Huntingdon! and I will go,” cried I, not knowing whether to laugh, or to cry, or to break out into a tempest of fury.
“Go, then, you vixen!” he said; but the instant he released my hand he had the audacity to put his arm round my neck, and kiss me.