"Pshaw!" exclaimed Sir Beverley impatiently. "You belong to the same generation, don't you? What more do you want?"
If he had slapped her face, Avery would scarcely have felt more amazed,
She gazed at him in silence, wondering if she could have heard aright.
Sir Beverley frowned upon her fiercely, the iron will of him scorning and surmounting his physical weakness.
"You've got nothing against the boy, I suppose?" he pursued, with the evident determination to get at the truth despite all opposition. "He has never given you any cause for complaint? He's behaved himself like a gentleman, hey?"
"Oh, of course, of course!" Avery said in distress. "It's not that!"
Sir Beverley frowned still more heavily. "Then—what the devil is it?" he demanded. "Don't you like him well enough? Aren't you—in love with him?" His lips curled ironically over the words; they sounded inexpressibly bitter.
Avery's eyes fell before his pitiless stare. She began with fingers that trembled to pluck the primroses that grew in a large tuft close to her, saying no word.
"Well?" said Sir Beverley, with growing impatience.
She kept her eyes lowered, for she felt she could not meet his look as she made reluctant answer. "No, it is not either. In fact, if I were a girl—I had not been married before—I think I should say Yes. But—but—" she paused, searching for words, striving to restrain a rising agitation, "as it is, I don't think it would be quite fair to him. I don't know if I could make him happy. I am not young enough, fresh enough, gay enough. I can't offer him a girl's first love, and that is what he ought to have. I so want him to have the best. I so want him to be happy."
The words were out with a rush, almost before she was aware of uttering them, and suddenly her eyes were full of tears, tears that caught her off her guard, so that she had neither time nor strength to check them. She turned quickly from him, fighting for self-control.