Ida drew her disengaged hand across her brow and frowned, as if she were trying to grasp his meaning.
"I—I beg your pardon, Joseph," she said. "I didn't quite understand—I was thinking of something else. You were asking me—"
He reddened and pushed his thick lips out with an expression of resentment.
"Well, I like that!" he said, uneasily, but with an attempt at a laugh. "I've just been proposing to you—asking you to be my wife; and you're going to, aren't you?"
Ida drew her arm from his, and regarded him with stony amazement. For the moment she really thought that either he had been drinking too much spirits at the refreshment-room at the station and that it was an elaborate joke on his part, or that she had lost her senses and was imagining a hideously ridiculous speech, too absurd and grotesque for even Joseph to have uttered. Then she saw by his face that he was sober and that he had actually proposed to her, and, in a kind of desperation, she laughed.
He had been going to take her arm again, but his hand fell to his side, and he looked at her with a mixture of astonishment and indignation, with such an expression of wounded vanity and resentment, that Ida felt almost forced to laugh again; but she checked the desire, and said, as gently and humbly as she could:
"I—I beg your pardon, Joseph. I thought it was a—a joke. I am very sorry. But though you didn't mean it as a jest, it is, of course, absurd. I don't think you quite know what you were saying; I am quite sure you don't mean it—"
"Oh, yes, but I do!" he broke in eagerly, and with a little air of relief. "I'm in earnest, 'pon my word, I am. I'm awfully in love with you; and if you'll say yes, I'll stand up to the guv'nor and make it all square for you."
"But I say 'No,'" said Ida, rather sternly, her lips setting tightly, her eyes flashing in the darkness, which, fortunately for Joseph, hid them from his sight. "Please do not speak to me in this way again."
"But look here!" he stammered, his face red, his thick lips twisted in an ugly fashion, "do you know what you're doing—saying?"