“I don't think it is very fair, perhaps not altogether delicate of you; and the more since he has not proposed, nor possibly ever may. But no matter, you shall hear his name. It was Major McCormick.”
“McCormick! You mean this for an insult to me, Miss Dill?”
“Well, it certainly is open to that objection,” said she, with a very slight closure of her eyes, and a look of steady, resolute defiance.
“And in this way,” continued he, “to throw ridicule over the offer I have made you?”
“Scarcely that; the proposition was in itself too ridiculous to require any such aid from me.”
For a moment Stapylton lost his self-possession, and he turned on her with a look of savage malignity.
“An insult, and an intentional insult!” said he; “a bold thing to avow.”
“I don't think so, Major Stapylton. We have been playing a very rough game with each other, and it is not very wonderful if each of us should have to complain of hard treatment.”