“I will do my best to be calm, Florence,” continued he, “and I will ask as much of you. Let neither of us sacrifice the prospect of a whole life’s happiness for the sake of a petty victory in a very petty dispute. If, however, you are of opinion—” he stopped, he was about to say more than he had intended, more than he knew how to say, and he stopped, confused and embarrassed.
“Why don’t you continue?” said she, with a cold smile.
“Because I don’t know what I was about to say.”
“Then shall I say it for you?”
“Yes, do so.”
“It was this, then, or at least to this purport: If you, Miss Florence Walter, are of opinion that two people who have not succeeded in inspiring each other with that degree of confidence that rejects all distrust, are scarcely wise in entering into a contract of which truthfulness is the very soul and essence, and that, though not very gallant on my part, as the man to suggest it, yet in all candour, which here must take the place of courtesy, the sooner the persons so placed escape from such a false position the better.”
“And part?” said he, in a hollow feeble voice.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly, as though to say that, or any similar word, will convey my meaning.
“Oh, Florence, is it come to this? Is this to be a last evening in its saddest, bitterest sense?”
“When gentlemen declare that they ‘insist,’ I take it they mean to have their way,” said she, with a careless toss of her head.