“Likes me? Likes everybody, I suppose!”—scornfully.
“Not me. If he did, of course we should be married. Now it will be much better that he should marry you.”
Teresa felt sick with the difficulty of convincing, and the remembrance of Wilbraham’s look. Sylvia’s ideas came but rarely, but once come it was next to impossible to dislodge them. She lifted the girl’s chin, and looked steadily into her eyes while she spoke.
“Listen, dear,” she said slowly. “I want you to understand very clearly. You have made a great mistake. He is nothing to me, nothing, nothing—he never can be anything.”
“He likes you,” repeated Sylvia obstinately.
“Don’t say such horrid things!” Teresa cried more hotly.
“And I should like him to have what he wants. I shall be so sorry if he goes away to-morrow.”
“Of course he must go.”
“Why?”
“Sylvia, I could shake you! Because if he is to be nothing to you, nobody else wants him.”