"He had no right to look at you like that, and you oughtn't to have smiled back, Molly," he said sternly.
Her nature leaped instantly to arms. "I suppose I've a right to my smiles," she retorted defiantly.
"No you haven't—not now. An engaged woman ought to be proper and sober—anybody will tell you so—ask Mr. Mullen. A girl may flirt a little and nobody thinks any harm of it, but it's different afterwards, and you know it."
"I know nothing of the kind, and I refuse to be preached to. I might as well marry Mr. Mullen."
The taunt, though it was uttered half in jest, appeared to torment him beyond endurance.
"How can you talk to me like this, after what you said five minutes ago?" he demanded.
His tone approached, unfortunately, the ministerial, and as he spoke, her anger flamed over her as hotly as her happiness had done a few minutes earlier.
"That was five minutes ago," she retorted with passion.
Stopping in the road, he caught her arms and held them to her sides, while the thunder cloud blackened his forehead. Two playthings of Nature, swept alternately by the calm and the storm of elemental forces, they faced each other in the midst of mating birds and insects that were as free as they.
"Do you mean that you've changed, and in five minutes?" he asked.