‘I like you very well, Mr. Thistlewood,’ she answered, looking up at him, ‘but I don’t like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.’
‘As for never shall,’ said he, ‘that remains to be seen.’
He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick with his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down upon the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.
‘Let’s look at it a little further,’ he added.
‘It is of no use,’ the girl answered pleadingly. ‘It hurts us both, and it can do no good at all.’
‘Let’s look at it a bit further,’ he said again. ‘This day month you said there was nobody you’d seen you liked better than me. Is that true still?’
‘It is quite true,’ she answered, ‘but it makes no difference.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ said John Thistlewood again. ‘And as for not liking me in a marrying way, that’s a thing a maid can’t be supposed to know much of.’ He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she made no answer. ‘You’ve known me all your life, Bertha, and you never knew anything again me.’
‘Never,’ she said, almost eagerly.
‘I’m well-to-do,’ he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if he were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he could bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down. ‘I’m not too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years. You’ve had my heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all There’s a many—not that I speak it in a bragging way—as would be willing enough to have me.’