"You have not been near me for weeks and now you turn up with your air of a grand Bashawe and order people out of my house. You have not been near me."
The next instant it was as though she tore off some last shred of mental veiling and threw it aside in her reckless mounting heat of temper.
"Near me!" she laughed scathingly, "For the matter of that when have you ever been near me? It's always been the same. I've known it for years. As the Yankees say, you 'wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole.' I'm sick of it. What did you do it for?"
"Do what?"
"Take possession of me as if I were your property. You never were in love with me—never for a second. If you had been you'd have married me."
"Yes. I should have married you."
"There was no reason why you should not. I was pretty. I was young. I'd been decently brought up—and it would have settled everything. Why didn't you instead of letting people think I was your mistress when I didn't count for as much as a straw in your life?"
"You represented more than that," he answered. "Kindly listen to me."
That she had lost her head completely was sufficiently manifested by the fact that she had begun to cry—which made it necessary for her to use her handkerchief with inimitable skill to prevent the tears from encroaching on her brilliant white and rose.