“Do you mean you—did this on purpose?”
“Why, of course. She told me ... forgive me for mentioning it ... how very poor you were—and I couldn’t let her make such a marriage. Not that way, so rashly—and a man we’d never seen. She will never listen to reason. I begged her to wait, even a little while; I didn’t want her to throw herself away. The only way was to make her a sort of prisoner, as I did. Aunt Irene had said ages ago that I could come here as her companion any time I wanted, so I packed up my things and went off at once. Then I intended to see you and—find out something about you.”
“Frankie doesn’t know you came for that reason—to prevent her marrying me,” he said, in a crestfallen way.
“I suppose not; she’s very hasty in her judgments. I suppose she puts it all down to selfishness and hard-heartedness. It doesn’t matter though, so long as I’ve saved her.”
He had not a word to say. Minnie had accomplished her favourite piece of magic, had made her opponent feel utterly guilty, had quite put him in the wrong. He was ready to believe that Frankie had been “saved” from a penniless and highly undesirable suitor.
“You don’t know what Frankie is to me,” said Minnie, improving as she went on, “there’s nothing—nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I do wish she didn’t misjudge me so. She’ll never know how hard it is for me, how I hated to leave home. I’m not like her—adventurous and enterprising. I was happy there on the farm, with the animals. And Grandma,” she added hastily.
“Well, you see,” said Lionel, weakly. “You didn’t explain to her. How could she help——”
“How could I explain!” she answered, reproachfully. “Only think how self-righteous and disgusting it would have sounded. Besides, she wouldn’t have believed me. And she would have thought that she knew what was best for herself. It would only have made more trouble.”
Lionel was no longer indignant and resolute; he was becoming more and more uncertain of himself, more and more apologetic.
“But,” he protested, “now we can’t see each other at all. It’s not only a question of getting married at once; it means that we’re to be entirely separated. Don’t you think that’s unnecessarily harsh?”