“Col. Anglesea, I have come to tell you that you may go to my father and ask his permission for you to marry me. You may also say to him, from me, that I hope he will give his consent, because—it will be a fiendish falsehood; but never mind that; you can tell it—because the marriage will secure my happiness.”
CHAPTER IX
SUITOR AND FATHER
When Odalite had signified her acceptance of the suit of Anglesea, although she had expressed herself in not too flattering language, the gallant colonel would have assumed the rôle of a favored lover and advanced to embrace her; but she lifted both hands and turned away her head with a look of repulsion calculated to cool the ardor of the warmest suitor, as she cried, sternly:
“Stand back! Do not dare to lay a finger on me! I do not belong to you! I am not yet your property! You are not my owner! You have not received my father’s permission to take possession of me! Go to him and tell him the falsehood you first suggested! Oh! how I hate you!”
And pale and cold and hard as she always was in his presence, with a loathing that was too deep for flush of cheek or flash of eye, she turned and re-entered the house.
He looked after her with a perfectly demoniacal expression of mingled longing and malignity, muttering:
“Oh, very well, my lady! It is your day now! But it will be mine soon! And then I shall know how to reduce you to submission.”