"You're the fair-weather sort too, then? One here and there has hinted to me that you were—your brother always said it. But never, never would I stand it from any of them. And now I see that it is so."
"No need to call names. The case is altered since Nathan Baskerville ruined you, and I'm not the sentimental kind to pretend different. As we're on this now, we'd better go through with it. You want to marry me and I wanted to marry you; but we can't live on air, I believe. I can't, anyway. It's a very simple question. You wish to marry me so soon as I please; but what do you mean to keep me on? I've got nothing—you know that; and you've got less than nothing, for there's the rent of the house we were to have lived in."
"I've let the house and I am looking round. I'm open to any reasonable offer."
"What nonsense you talk! Who are you that people should make you offers? What can you do? I ask you that again."
"By God! And you're supposed to love me!"
"When poverty comes in at the door—you know the rest. I'm not a heroine of a story-book. All very well for you; but what about me? You can't afford to marry, and I can't afford not to; so there it stands. There's only one thing in the world—only one thing—that you can be trusted to earn money at, and that's teaching people to ride horses. And that you won't do. I've thought it out, and you needn't swear and curse; because it's the truth."
"Damn it all——"
"No good raging. You're selfish, and you never think of me working my fingers to the bone and, very likely, not knowing where to look for a meal. You only want me—not my happiness and prosperity. That's not love. If you loved me, you would have come long since and released me from this engagement, and saved me the pain of all this talk. Nobody ever thinks of me and my future and my anxieties. I've only got my face and—and—you say 'damn' and I'll say it too. Damn—damn—damn—that's thrice for your once; and I hate you thrice as much as you hate me, and I've thrice the reason to. I hate you for being so selfish; and 'tis no good ever you saying you care about me again, because you never did—not really. You couldn't—else you wouldn't have put yourself first always."
He started, quite reduced to silence by this assault. She struck him dumb, but his look infuriated her.
"You won't make me draw back, so you needn't think it," she cried. "I'm not ashamed of a word I've said. 'Tis you ought to be ashamed. And I'm not sorry for you neither, for you've never once been sorry for me. After the crash, not one word of trouble for my loss and my disappointment did you utter—'twas only whining about your horses, and the house at Plympton, and all the rest of it. Vain cursing of the man in his grave; when you ought to have cursed yourself for letting him have the power to do what he did. I'd have stuck to you, money or no money, if you'd been a different man—I swear that. I'd have taken you and set to work—as I shall now, single-handed—but how can any decent girl with a proper conceit of herself sink herself to your level and become your drudge? Am I to work for us both? Are you going to live on the money I make out of women's bonnets?"