“I am angry, certainly,” answered she, trying to release herself. “I hope you are going to apologize for—for forgetting that I am not nine now.”
“How old are you, Mabin?”
“Nineteen.”
“Quite old enough to take up the promises you made ten years ago. Quite old enough to marry me.”
“Rudolph! What nonsense!”
“Oh, is it nonsense? If you think I’m going to allow my feelings to be trifled with by a chit of a girl who used to go halves with me in bull’s eyes, you’re very much mistaken! Now then, are you willing to ratify your promise, or am I to bring an action for breach?”
But Mabin, trembling with excitement and happiness so great as to be bewildering, felt dimly that there was too much levity about this abrupt settlement of the affairs of two lifetimes. This sudden proposal did not accord with her serious disposition, with her sense of the fitness of things. She looked at him with eyes pathetically full of something like terror.
“Rudolph!” she whispered, in a voice which was unsteady with strong emotion, “how can you talk like this? How can you? Don’t you know that it hurts?”
“Hurts, little one? What do you mean by that?”
His tone was tender enough to satisfy the most exacting damsel, but Mabin was struck with fresh terror on remarking that instead of releasing her he tightened the grasp in which he held her.