“You acknowledge, then, that I was right,” cried he, suddenly; “there is a prior attachment? Your heart is not your own to give?”
“And by what right do you presume to question me? Who are you, that dares to do this?”
“Who am I?” cried he, and for once his voice rose to the discordant ring of passion.
“Yes, that was my question,” repeated she, firmly.
“So, then, you have had your lesson, young lady,” said he; and the words came from him with a hissing sound, that indicated intense anger. “Who am I? You want my birth, my parentage, my bringing up! Had you no friend who could have asked this in your stead? Or were all those around you so bereft of courage that they deputed to a young girl what should have been the office of a man?”
Though the savage earnestness of his manner startled, it did not affright her; and it was with a cold quietness she said, “If you had known my father, Major Stapylton, I suspect you would not have accused his daughter of cowardice!”
“Was he so very terrible?” said he, with a smile that was half a sneer.
“He would have been, to a man like you.”
“To a man like me,—a man like me! Do you know, young lady, that either your words are very idle words or very offensive ones?”
“And yet I have no wish to recall them, sir.”