"Julia!"
He too jumped to his feet. Once more he tried to embrace the quivering shoulders, to imprison the nervous, restless fingers, to capture the trembling lips. But she would no longer yield. Of what use were yielding now?
"Nay! nay! I pray you, leave me," she said petulantly. "Of what purpose are your protestations, my lord—they are but a further outrage. Indeed, I pray you, go."
Once more she turned to the bell-pull, and took the heavy silken cord in her hand, the outward sign of his dismissal. Some chivalrous instinct in him made him loth to force his company on her any longer. But his glowering eyes, fierce and sullen, sought to read her face.
"When may I come back?" he asked.
"Never," she replied.
But we may be allowed to suppose that something in her accent, in her attitude of hesitancy, gave the lie to the cruel word, for he rejoined immediately:
"To-morrow?"
"Never," she repeated.