"Don't you think, then, you ought to choose between your father and me?" he said in a low, hard voice, standing over her.
"What do you mean?" she faltered.
"What do I mean? It's plain enough what I mean, isn't it? Your father may live twenty years yet. Nobody knows. The older he gets the more obstinate he'll be. We may be kept hanging about for years and years and years. Indefinitely. What's the sense of it? You say you've got your duty, but what's the object of being engaged?
"Do you want to break it off, George?"
"Now don't put it like that. You know I don't want to break it off. You know I want to marry you. Only you won't, and I'm not going to be made a fool of. I'm absolutely innocent."
"Of course you are!" she agreed eagerly.
"Well, I'm not going to be made a fool of by your father. If we're engaged, you know what it means. Marriage. If it doesn't mean that, then I say we've no right to be engaged."
Marguerite seemed to recoil at the last words, but she recovered herself. And then, heedless of being in a public place, she drew off her glove, and drew the engagement ring from her finger, and held it out to George. She could not
speak. The gesture was her language. George was extremely staggered. He was stupefied for an instant. Then he took the ring, and under an uncontrollable savage impulse he threw it into the river. He did not move for a considerable time, staring at the river in front. Neither did she move. At length he said in a cold voice, without moving his head:
"Here's Chelsea Pier."