"I did not expect—this."
"How could I know what you expected? But in one way I am glad you made me go on; it is well that you should have for once a man's true opinion."
"All men do not think as you think."
"Yes, they do; the honest ones."
"Mr. Percival does not."
"Oh, Percival! He's effeminate."
"So you judge him," said Mrs. Winthrop, to whose utterance anger had now restored the distinctness.
"We will not quarrel about Lorimer Percival," said Ford; "he is not worth it—at least, he is not worth it to me." Then, as they entered the last room, "Take it as I meant it, Katharine," he said, the tone of his voice changing—"take it as a true woman should. Show me the sweet side of your nature, the gentle, womanly side, and I will then be your suitor indeed, and a far more real and earnest one than though I had become the victim you intended me to be. You may not care for me; you may never care. But only let me see you accept for your own sake what I have said, in the right spirit, and I will at least ask you to care, as humbly and devotedly as man ever asked woman. For when she is her true self she is so far above us that we can only be humble."
The flush still covered her forehead; her eyes looked at him, strangely and darkly blue in all this red.
"Curious, isn't it, how things come about?" she said. "You have made me a declaration, after all."