“Sour grapes!”
“Yes. For if I had been handsome I would have married you; I like you enough for that.”
“Then why in heaven’s name won’t you marry me?” asked Lauriston, much excited.
“Simply because you would take me to avoid something worse; and that I have no attractions strong enough to keep you if the ‘something worse’ should try to get hold of you again.”
Lauriston was amazed and shocked at this penetration on the part of a young girl. He gave her a shy look out of the corners of his eyes, and leaned forward on his knees, his handsome brown head bent, playing with his moustache with moist, nervous fingers. She laughed as she looked at him, with a sound in her voice which struck him, though he could not quite make up his mind whether it was tender or bitter.
“I have some astonishing notions for a girl, haven’t I?” she said quietly. “But after all it is not so very surprising if you will consider the facts a little. Here am I, a girl too plain, too unattractive to be worshipped like my sisters, too proud to be married for the only attraction I share with them, and not at all inclined to do homage to a sex that prefers a beautiful wax dolly to—well, to a faithful and intelligent dog.” There was no mistaking the bitterness of her tone now, while the half resentful, half plaintive expression of her eyes made her face at least interesting. “So I have had to carve out a life for myself, with peculiar pleasures and peculiar interests. I read and I study to an extent which would almost disgust you perhaps; and I watch, and listen, and think until I know as much of life and of the people I meet as Charlotte and Cicely know of their ‘points’ and the colours which suit their complexions.”
“I shall begin to be afraid of you,” said George.
“Why?” asked Ella, folding her hands and sitting up stiff and straight as a school-teacher. There was a jardinière full of pretty flowering plants near the ottoman on which they were sitting. Charlotte or Cicely would have taken the opportunity to lean forward and play with or gather some of the blossoms, to show off their figure and the pretty curves of their wrists. But Ella, when she chose to talk, always became too much interested in her subject to have thought for petty coquetries, and so she sat, with the calm intent face of a judge, prepared to give an impartial, yet kindly, hearing to George’s answer.
“Because you are so clever.”
“And so are you. But even if you were not, you would have no need to be afraid of me. It would be as reasonable of me to be afraid of you, because I know that if you liked you are strong enough to kill me with one blow of your fist, as for you to think I would use my wits to do you harm. One does not turn one’s strength against one’s friends.”