“I don’t know. Only he struck me as being upset about something on that day we shot together.”
“Well, he doesn’t give me his confidence, you know.”
“No, I know. Poor Audrey!”
“Why do you call me poor Audrey?” asked the girl angrily. “I don’t want your pity, or anybody’s.”
“You don’t want anything of mine, I’m sure; and yet it’s all there for your acceptance—every bit.”
“Is this keeping your promise? No, I don’t. I want what I want, and it’s nothing that you can give me.”
“Not my whole love and submission, Audrey?”
She flounced her shoulder, and seemed as if about to leave him, but suddenly thought better of it, and faced him resolutely.
“It’s that, Frank, though you don’t seem to understand it. I don’t want any man’s submission! I want his mastership, if I want him at all.” Her eyes softened, and she looked at him pityingly. “I hate to pain you, you dear; but I can’t marry you. You have a thousand good qualities; you are gentle and true and just and honourable, and you have a mind to put my poor little organ to shame. Why you should possibly want me, I can’t tell; but I’m very sure of one thing—that I am wise in disappointing you. We should be the brass and the earthenware pots, Frank, and you would be the one to be broke. I know it. You are a poet, and I am the very worst of prose. You have a right to despise me, and I have a right—not to despise you, but to see what you are not—from my point of view.”
“That is to say, a sportsman.”