"It's all very well; but you leave me guessing too often: and I'm not the sort that care to be left guessing. From a man I always get a plain answer, and I never leave him till I have. I hang on like a dog, and turn or twist as they may, they know they've got to come to it. But you—it's rather late in the day to begin all over again and ask you if you really love me, or not. It's putting a pretty big slight upon me; and perhaps, if I wasn't a fool, I should see the answer in that, without asking for it. For you wouldn't slight me—not if you cared for me one quarter what I care for you."
He showed temper, and the girl made no very genuine attempt to turn away wrath. She was in a wilful and wayward mood—a thing uncommon with her; yet such a mood was capable of being provoked by Johnny oftener than most people.
"I love your hair," she said, stroking it.
He shook his head and put on his cap.
"You're not playing the game and, what's a lot more, you know you're not. It's outside your character to do this—weak—feeble—mischievous. You know I smart a bit under it, because—fault or not—I'm a proud man. How d'you think that's likely to pan out in my feelings to you? Does it occur to you that with my very keen sense of justice, Dinah, I might begin to ask myself questions about it?"
She changed her manner and, from being idle and playful, gave him her undivided attention. He had said something that rather pleased her when he hinted that his own feelings might grow modified; but she knew well enough that such a remark ought not to have pleased her and was certainly not uttered to do so.
"There's a screw loose somewhere, Johnny," she said.
"Where then? And whose fault—yours, or mine? God's my judge I didn't know there was a screw loose, and it's pretty ugly news, I can tell you. Perhaps you'll let in a little more light, while you're about it, and tell me what the screw is and why i'ts loose?"
"I wish I could. Oh Johnny, don't you feel it?"
"No, I do not. And if I don't, then it's up to you to explain, not me."