"No, never, never."
"Are you telling me that you refuse me?" asks he, looking at her with a rather strange expression in his eyes.
"I am sorry you put it that way," returns she, faintly.
"I don't believe you know what you are doing," cries he, losing his self-control for once in his life. "You will regret this. For a moment of spite, of ill-temper, you——"
"Why should I be ill-tempered about anything that concerns you and me?" says she, very gently still. She has grown even whiter, however, and has lifted her head so that her large eyes are directed straight to his. Something in the calm severity of her look chills him.
"Ah! you know best!" says he, viciously. The game is up—is thoroughly played out. This he acknowledges to himself, and the knowledge does not help to sweeten his temper. It helps him, however, to direct a last shaft at her. Taking up his hat, he makes a movement to depart, and then looks back at her. His overweening vanity is still alive.
"When you do regret it," says he—"and I believe that will be soon—it will be too late. You had the goodness to give me a warning a few minutes ago—I give you one now."
"I shall not regret it," says she, coolly.
"Not even when Dysart has sailed for India, and then 'the girl he left behind him' is disconsolate?" asks he, with an insolent laugh. "Ha! that touches you!"
It had touched her. She looks like a living thing stricken suddenly into marble, as she stands gazing back at him, with her hands tightly clenched before her. India! To India! And she had never heard.