“I have no sorrows,” answered the girl and tried to hold her head high.
John Hubert’s voice said:
“Anne, a visitor!”
Of late Charles Münster had often come to the house. In the evening he sat comfortably in the green room, approving everything John Hubert said, and when he could think of nothing to say, he carelessly twirled the thumbs of his big, red hands.
Those hands annoyed Anne. They became embarrassed, blushed like human faces, struggled, while Charles Münster remained placid and tedious in his inordinately long Sunday coat.
“Why does he come?” wondered Anne wearily, while sitting opposite him.
One day she learned that too; Charles Münster had asked her father for her hand.
“It is a very honourable proposal and very advantageous,” said John Hubert to his daughter. “The house of Münster has a good reputation and is serious. The young man is intelligent and owns some capital.”
Anne’s heart sank while she looked at him and then the blood rushed to her face. All her life she had striven to repress her will; she had always obeyed, but what she was now asked to do roused her to rebellion.
“No, never!” And her voice rang out like a hammer dropping on steel.