"But you're not going."
"After what you've done for me I insist upon my right to share whatever danger there may be." She spoke heatedly.
In her heat and impulsiveness and generous bravery Cleggett thought her adorable, although he began to get really angry with her, too. At the same time he was aware that her gratitude to him was such that she was on fire to give him some positive and early proof of it. It had not so much as occurred to her to enjoy immunity on account of her sex; it had not entered her mind, apparently, that her sex was an obstacle in the way of participating in whatever dangerous enterprise he had planned. She was, in fact, behaving like a chivalric but obstinate boy; she had not been a militant suffragette for nothing. And yet, somehow, this attitude only served to enhance her essential femininity. Nevertheless, Cleggett was inflexible.
"You would scarcely forbid me to go to Morris's today, or anywhere else I may choose," she said hotly, with a spot of red on either cheek bone, and a dangerous dilatation of her eyes.
"That is exactly what I intend to do," said Cleggett, with an intensity equal to her own, "FORBID you."
"You are curiously presumptuous," she said.
It was a real quarrel before they were done with it, will opposed to naked will. And oddly enough Cleggett found his admiration grow as his determination to gain his point increased. For she fought fair, disdaining the facile weapon of tears, and when she yielded she did it suddenly and merrily.
"You've the temper of a sultan, Mr. Cleggett," she said with a laugh, which was her signal of capitulation. And then she added maliciously: "You've a devil of a temper—for a little man!"
"Little!" Cleggett felt the blood rush into his face again and was vexed at himself. "I'm taller than you are!" he cried, and the next instant could have bitten his tongue off for the childish vanity of the speech.
"You're not!" she cried, her whole face alive with laughter. "Measure and see!"