"So am I, for the matter of that. We are all growing in years."
"Have you looked out for yourself, and thought what manner of home yours will be when he shall have been dead and buried?" He paused, but she remained silent, and assumed a special cast of countenance, as though she might say a word, if he pressed her, which it would be disagreeable for him to hear. "When he has gone will you not be very solitary without a husband?"
"No doubt I shall."
"Had you not better accept one when one comes your way who is not, as he tells you, quite unworthy of you?"
"In spite of such worth solitude would be preferable."
"You certainly have a knack, Miss Grey, of making the most unpalatable assertions."
"I will make another more unpalatable. Solitude I could bear,—and death,—but not such a marriage. You force me to tell you the whole truth because half a truth will not suffice."
"I have endeavored to be at any rate civil to you," he said.
"And I have endeavored to save you what trouble I could by being straightforward." Still he paused, sitting in his chair uneasily, but looking as though he had no intention of going. "If you will only take me at my word and have done with it!" Still he did not move. "I suppose there are young ladies who like this kind of thing, but I have become old enough to hate it. I have had very little experience of it, but it is odious to me. I can conceive nothing more disagreeable than to have to sit still and hear a gentleman declare that he wants to make me his wife, when I am quite sure that I do not intend to make him my husband."
"Then, Miss Grey," he said, rising from his chair suddenly, "I shall bid you adieu."