“I am very sure you shan’t,” said Agatha, after an incredulous pause, springing up and gathering her skirt as if to run away. “You do not suppose I was in earnest, do you?”
“Undoubtedly I do. I am in earnest.”
Agatha hesitated, uncertain whether he might not be playing with her as she had just been playing with him. “Take care,” she said. “I may change my mind and be in earnest, too; and then how will you feel, Mr. Trefusis?”
“I think, under our altered relations, you had better call me Sidney.”
“I think we had better drop the joke. It was in rather bad taste, and I should not have made it, perhaps.”
“It would be an execrable joke; therefore I have no intention of regarding it as one. You shall be held to your offer, Agatha. Are you in love with me?”
“Not in the least. Not the very smallest bit in the world. I do not know anybody with whom I am less in love or less likely to be in love.”
“Then you must marry me. If you were in love with me, I should run away. My sainted Henrietta adored me, and I proved unworthy of adoration—though I was immensely flattered.”
“Yes; exactly! The way you treated your first wife ought to be sufficient to warn any woman against becoming your second.”
“Any woman who loved me, you mean. But you do not love me, and if I run away you will have the advantage of being rid of me. Our settlements can be drawn so as to secure you half my fortune in such an event.”