“I want to marry your niece, Mr. Sabin,” he said.
“Very natural indeed,” Mr. Sabin remarked easily. “If I were a young man of your age and evident taste I have not the least doubt but that I should want to marry her myself. I offer you my sincere sympathy. Unfortunately it is impossible.”
“I want to know,” Wolfenden said, “why it is impossible? I want a reason of some sort.”
“You shall have one with pleasure,” Mr. Sabin said. “My niece is already betrothed.”
“To a man,” Wolfenden exclaimed indignantly, “whom she admits that she does not care for!”
“Whom she has nevertheless,” Mr. Sabin said firmly, and with a sudden flash of anger in his eyes, “agreed and promised of her own free will to marry. Look here, Lord Wolfenden, I do not desire to quarrel with you. You saved me from a very awkward accident a few nights ago, and I remain your debtor. Be reasonable! My niece has refused your offer. I confirm her refusal. Your proposal does us both much honour, but it is utterly out of the question. That is putting it plainly, is it not? Now, you must choose for yourself—whether you will drop the subject and remain our valued friend, or whether you compel me to ask you to leave us at once, and consider us henceforth as strangers.”
The girl laid her hand upon his shoulder and looked at him pleadingly.
“For my sake,” she said, “choose to remain our friend, and let this be forgotten.”
“For your sake, I consent,” he said. “But I give no promise that I will not at some future time reopen the subject.”
“You will do so,” Mr. Sabin said, “exactly when you desire to close your acquaintance with us. For the rest, you have chosen wisely. Now I am going to take you home, Helène. Afterwards, if Lord Wolfenden will give me a match, I shall be delighted to have a round of golf with him.”