"I think it is. You know you oughtn't to talk to me like that. Your own papa and mamma would be angry if they knew it."
"Why should they be angry? Do you think that I shall not tell them?"
"I am sure they would disapprove it altogether," said Mary. "In fact it is all nonsense, and you really must go away."
Then she made a decided attempt to enter the house by the drawing-room window, which opened out on a gravel terrace.
But he stopped her, standing boldly by the window. "I think you ought to give me an answer, Mary," he said.
"I have; and I cannot say anything more. You must let me go in."
"If they say that it's all right at Carstairs, then will you love me?"
"They won't say that it's all right; and papa won't think that it's right. It's very wrong. You haven't been to Oxford yet, and you'll have to remain there for three years. I think it's very ill-natured of you to come and talk to me like this. Of course it means nothing. You are only a boy, but yet you ought to know better."
"It does mean something. It means a great deal. As for being a boy, I am older than you are, and have quite as much right to know my own mind."
Hereupon she took advantage of some little movement in his position, and, tripping by him hastily, made good her escape into the house. Young Carstairs, perceiving that his occasion for the present was over, went into the yard and got upon his horse. He was by no means contented with what he had done, but still he thought that he must have made her understand his purpose.