"Making fun of you!"
"It does not signify. I don't care which it is. But I won't have it. There!"
"A gentleman should be allowed to express his feelings and to explain his position."
"You have expressed and explained more than enough, and I won't have any more. If you will sit down and talk about something else, or else go away, there shall be an end of it;—but if you go on, I will ring the bell again. What can a man gain by going on when a girl has spoken as I have done?" They were both at this time standing up, and he was now as angry as she was.
"I've paid you the greatest compliment a man can pay a woman," he began.
"Very well. If I remember rightly I thanked you for it yesterday. If you wish it, I will thank you again to-day. But it is a compliment which becomes very much the reverse if it be repeated too often. You are sharp enough to understand that I have done everything in my power to save us both from this trouble."
"What makes you so fierce, Miss Boncassen?"
"What makes you so foolish?"
"I suppose it must be something peculiar to American ladies."
"Just that;—something peculiar to American ladies. They don't like—well; I don't want to say anything more that can be called fierce."