"I do not, indeed. It distresses me much that you should say so. So much, that against my better judgment I give in to you in this matter of Heskett, if only to prove to you how you wrong me when you say I wish to thwart you. Heskett is pardoned."
So saying, he turns from her abruptly and half contemptuously, and, striking across the grass, makes for a path that leads indirectly to the stables.
When he has gone some yards it occurs to Miss Chesney that she feels decidedly small. She has gained her point, it is true, but in a sorry fashion, and one that leaves her discontented with her success. She feels that had he done rightly he would have refused to bandy words with her at all upon the subject, and he would not have pardoned the reprehensible Heskett; something in his manner, too, which she chooses to think domineering, renders her angry still, together with a vague, uneasy consciousness that he has treated her throughout as a child and given in to her merely because it is a simpler matter to surrender one's judgment than to argue with foolish youth.
This last thought is intolerable. A child, indeed! She will teach him she is no child, and that women may have sense although they have not reached the admirable age of six-and-twenty.
Without further thought she runs after him, and, overtaking him just as he turns the corner, says, very imperiously, with a view to sustaining her dignity:
"Sir Guy, wait: I want to speak to you."
"Well," he says, stopping dead short, and answering her in his iciest tones. He barely looks at her; his eyes, having once met hers, wander away again without an instant's lingering, as though they had seen nothing worthy of attention. This plain ignoring of her charms is bitter to Miss Chesney.
"I do not want you to forgive that boy against your will," she says, haughtily. "Take back your promise."
"Impossible! You have made me break my word to myself; nothing shall induce me to break my word to you. Besides, it would be unfair to Heskett. If I were to dismiss him now I should feel as though I had wronged him."