“I never would if I could help it. And so far I have managed ‘to help it’ very well. I’m naturally mild, I think. You are not, you know. I don’t mean to be rude, but I think you are pugnacious—‘combative’ is prettier.”
“My father was a soldier,” said the girl, with some pride.
“And mine is a brewer. There’s a lot of inheritable difference between handling gunpowder and brewing mild ale. Like father, like son. I shall brew mild ale too. If you could have charged at Balaclava, you would. By the way, it isn’t the beer that you object to? Please tell me. I shouldn’t mind at all, and I’d much rather know that it was only that.”
“How absurd!” cried Clare with scorn. “As though it made any difference!”
“Well—what is it, then?” asked Brook with sudden impatience. “You have no right to hate me without telling me why.”
“No right?” The young girl turned on him half fiercely, and then laughed. “You haven’t a standing order from Heaven to be liked by the whole human race, you know!”
“And if I had, you would be the solitary exception, I suppose,” suggested Johnstone with a rather discontented smile.
“Perhaps.”
“Is there anything I could do to make you change your mind? Because, if it were anything in reason, I’d do it.”
“It’s rather a pity that you should put in the condition of its being in reason,” answered Clare, as her lip curled. “But there isn’t anything. You may just as well give it up at once.”