"Simply to take you to his own house, like any other of his goods and chattels."
"I am not his goods or his chattels."
"But you soon will be; and why shouldn't you accept your lot quietly? He is Belton of Belton, and everything here belongs to him."
"I do not belong to him."
"What nonsense! When a man has the command of the situation, as he has, he can do just what he pleases. If he were to come and carry you off by violence, I have no doubt the Beltonians would assist him, and say that he was right. And you of course would forgive him. Belton of Belton may do anything."
"That is nonsense, if you please."
"Indeed if you had any of that decent feeling of feminine inferiority which ought to belong to all women, he would have found you sitting on the door-step of his house waiting for him."
That had been said early in the morning, when they first knew that he had arrived; but they had been talking about him ever since,—talking about him under pressure from Mrs. Askerton, till Clara had been driven to long that she might be spared. "If he chooses to come, he will come," she said. "Of course he will come," Mrs. Askerton had answered, and then they heard the ring of the bell. "There he is. I could swear to the sound of his foot. Doesn't he step as though he were Belton of Belton, and conscious that everything belonged to him?" Then there was a pause. "He has been shown in to Colonel Askerton. What on earth could he want with him?"
"He has called to tell him something about the cottage," said Clara, endeavouring to speak as though she were calm through it all.
"Cottage! Fiddlestick! The idea of a man coming to look after his trumpery cottage on the first day of his showing himself as lord of his own property! Perhaps he is demanding that you shall be delivered up to him. If he does I shall vote for obeying."