"Then without doubt you have come to this quiet place searching for solitude, in which to think out all your hard thoughts of me."
"I never think hardly of you, Molly."
"You certainly were not thinking kindly."
Now, he might easily have abashed her at this point by asking "where was the necessity to think of her at all?" but there is an innate courtesy, a natural gentleness about Luttrell that utterly forbids him.
"And," goes on his tormentor, the more angry that she cannot induce him to revile her, "I do not wish you to call me 'Molly' any more. Only those who—who love me call me by that name. Marcia and my grandfather (two people I detest) call me Eleanor. You can follow their example for the future."
"There will not be any future. I have been making up my mind, and—I shall sell out and go abroad immediately."
"Indeed!" There was a slight, a very slight, tremble in her saucy tones. "What a sudden determination! Well, I hope you will enjoy yourself. It is charming weather for a pleasure-trip."
"It is."
"You shouldn't lose much more time, however. Winter will soon be here; and it must be dismal in the extreme traveling in frost and snow."
"I assure you"—bitterly—"there is no occasion to hurry me. I am as anxious to go as ever you could desire."