“Let me go! Let me go!” she choked. “Och, why are you doing this and spoiling everything?”
In escaping from his arms Nancy had gone right into her room. Kenrick followed her in and, shutting the door behind him, began to plead with her.
“Let me come and sit in here for a while. I won’t try to kiss you again. Let’s pull up a couple of chairs to the fire and talk.”
“Och, do go away,” Nancy begged. “There’s nothing to talk about now, and it’s late, and I feel so unhappy about this.”
All the time she was talking she was searching everywhere for the matches to light the lamp and illuminate with its common sense this mad situation created by moonshine and shadows and flickering logs.
“You’ve surely realised that I’ve been madly in love with you ever since I saw you at Bristol?” he demanded.
Nancy found the matches and lit the lamp. Then she turned to face Kenrick.
“Of course I didn’t realise it. Do you suppose I would have let you pay for my singing-lessons and all this, if I’d thought you were in love with me? I see it now, and I could kill myself for being so dense. And me supposing it was all on account of my fine voice! Och, it’s too humiliating. Just an arrangement between you and Gambone, and me to be so mad as to believe in you.”
“Now don’t be too unjust, Nancy,” he said. “You have a fine voice, and even if you turn me down as a lover I’m still willing to see you through with your training.”
“I thought you knew so much about women,” she stabbed. “You don’t really suppose that I’d accept another penny from you now?”