“I know it is. I can’t get you to talk to me any other way, so I thought I’d try main force for a change.”
“Well, it is a change,” she agreed. “Shall I begin to scream now, or do you intend to give me some other provocation?”
“Don’t be coarse, darling.” There is a certain disadvantage in having known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. Dick was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Nancy, don’t you love me?” he said, “don’t you really?”
“No,” Nancy said deliberately, “I don’t, and you know very well I don’t. Unlock that door, and let’s be sensible.”
“Don’t you know, dear, or care that you’re hurting me?”
“No, I don’t,” Nancy said. “You say so, and I hear you, but I don’t really believe it. If I did—”
“If you did—what?”
“Then I’d be sorrier.”
“You aren’t sorry at all, as it stands.”