"Indeed she would not," said Maud. "She would certainly have encouraged you."
"That would have been just as bad," said Anthony.
Suddenly Maud felt stimulated. During all this fortnight neither the gardeners nor the dogs had said anything so interesting. She sat down again.
"I should like you to explain that," she said, without confessing to herself that explanation was unnecessary or that she wished to hear him explain.
"You are sure?" he said.
"Quite."
"It is this, then," said he—"we have both been put in a false position. We have been urged to marry each other, and you have refused me. It has not been fair on either of us. In spite of the pressure which has been put upon you, you have refused me; in spite of the pressure put upon me, I want nothing else in the world but that you should marry me. Mind, I quite sympathize with you, for if there is anything in the world which would make one wish never to see a person again, it is to have that person persistently hurled at one. I have been hurled at you. That is one of the reasons why I came here, to tell you that I sympathize with you. I am afraid people have made me an uncommon nuisance to you."
Anthony paused, raised his eyes a moment, and saw that Maud was looking at him steadily, with grave consideration in her face. He felt, rightly, that never before had she given him such favourable attention.
"I am not such a coxcomb as to suppose that you would have given me a different answer if you had not quite naturally been 'put off' by the way in which you have been treated," he continued; "but I do ask you to remember that I have scarcely had a fair chance. Please try to think that it has not been my fault."