"I've always told you I could change in three," she retorted.
"I don't believe it—you are behaving foolishly."
"And you are wise, I suppose—preaching and prating to me as if you stood in the pulpit. When you were begging me so humbly for a kind word, I might have known that as soon as you got the kind word, you'd begin to want to manage me body and soul—that's a man all over."
"I merely said that an engaged woman ought not to smile too free at other men—and that you ought not to even more than others, because there is something so inviting about you. Mr. Mullen would say the same thing from the pulpit—and what one man can say in the pulpit, I reckon, another may repeat in the road."
"No, he mayn't—not if he wants to marry me."
"If I promise not to say a word more about it, will you get over your temper?"
"If you keep your promise, but how am I to know that you won't burst out again the next time I look at a man?"
"Only try to look at them a little differently, Molly, not quite so wide-eyed and red-lipped—but primmer and with lowered lashes, just a bit contemptuous, as if your were thinking 'you might as well be a stick or a stone for all the thought I am giving you.'" The mental picture appeared to afford him satisfaction, for he resumed after a moment. "I believe if you'd practise it a while before the glass you could do it—you are so clever."
"Why on earth should I make myself ugly just to please you?"
"It wouldn't be making yourself ugly—I can't endure an ugly woman. All
I want you to be is sober."