“But I can't always kneel to you, Dan,” she interposed.
He put her words impatiently aside, “and what's more I knew then that I had loved you all my life without knowing it,” he pursued. “You may taunt me with fickleness, but I'm not fickle—I was merely a fool. It took me a long time to find out what I wanted, but I've found out at last, and, so help me God, I'll have it yet. I never went without a thing I wanted in my life.”
“Then it will be good for you,” responded Betty. “Shall I put some rose leaves into your pocket?” She spoke indifferently, but all the while she heard her heart singing for joy.
In the rage of his boyish passion, he cut brutally at the flowers growing at his feet.
“If you keep this up, you'll send me to the devil!” he exclaimed.
She caught his hand and took the whip from his fingers. “Ah, don't hurt the poor flowers,” she begged, “they aren't to blame.”
“Who is to blame, Betty?”
She looked up wistfully into his angry face. “You are no better than a child, Dan,” she said, almost sadly, “and you haven't the least idea what you are storming so about. It's time you were a man, but you aren't, you're just—”
“Oh, I know, I'm just a pampered poodle dog,” he finished, bitterly.
“Well, you ought to be something better, and you must be.”