"Don't bandy words."
"But I must use words, sir. I only want to be sure that you're making an appeal to me, and not giving me commands."
He spoke sharply. "I wish you to understand that you're inducing a young man to act in a way he is going to find contrary to his interests."
I could barely nerve myself to look up at him. "If by the 'young man' you mean Mr. Hugh Brokenshire, then I'm inducing him to do nothing whatever; unless," I added, "you call it an inducement that I—I"—I was bound to force the word out—"unless you call it an inducement that I love him."
"But that's it," Mrs. Rossiter broke in. "That's what my father means. If you'd stop caring anything about him you wouldn't give him encouragement."
I looked at her with a dim, apologetic smile. It was a time, I felt, to speak not only with more courage, but with more sentiment than I was accustomed to use in expressing myself.
"I'm afraid I can't give my heart, and take it back, like that."
"I can," she returned, readily. She spoke as if it was a matter of cracking her knuckles or wagging her ears. "If I don't want to like a person I don't do it. It's training and self-command."
"You're fortunate," I said, quietly. Why I should have glanced again at Mrs. Brokenshire I hardly know; but I did so, as I added: "I've had no training of that kind—and I doubt if many women have."
Mrs. Brokenshire, who was gazing at me with the same kind of fascinated stare as on the former occasion, faintly, but quite perceptibly, inclined her head. In this movement I was sure I had the key to the mystery that seemed to surround her.