“I have never had,” Wolfenden said calmly, “any suspicion at all concerning your niece.”
“She would be, I am sure, much flattered,” Mr. Sabin declared. “At the same time I can scarcely see on what grounds you continue to hope for an impossibility. My niece’s refusal seemed to me explicit enough, especially when coupled with my own positive prohibition.”
“Your niece,” Wolfenden said, “is doubtless of age. I should not trouble about your consent if I could gain hers, and I may as well tell you at once, that I by no means despair of doing so.”
Mr. Sabin bit his lip, and his dark eyes flashed out with a sudden fire.
“I should be glad to know, sir,” he said, “on what grounds you consider my voice in the affair to be ineffective?”
“Partly,” Wolfenden answered, “for the reason which I have already given you—because your niece is of age; and partly also because you persist in giving me no definite reason for your refusal.”
“I have told you distinctly,” Mr. Sabin said, “that my niece is betrothed and will be married within six months.”
“To whom? where is he? why is he not here? Your niece wears no engagement ring. I will answer for it, that if she is as you say betrothed, it is not of her own free will.”
“You talk,” Mr. Sabin said with dangerous calm, “like a fool. It is not customary amongst the class to which my niece belongs to wear always an engagement ring. As for her affections, she has had, I am glad to say, a sufficient self-control to keep them to herself. Your presumption is simply the result of your entire ignorance. I appeal to you for the last time, Lord Wolfenden, to behave like a man of common sense, and abandon hopes which can only end in disappointment.”
“I have no intention of doing anything of the sort,” Wolfenden said doggedly; “we Englishmen are a pig-headed race, as you were once polite enough to observe. Your niece is the only woman whom I have wished to marry, and I shall marry her, if I can.”