She was looking up at him with the faintest shadow of a smile lurking in the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were no longer tremulous when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just how you feel; you are excited, and—and impulsive, and there's a sort of getting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and all that. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might take advantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open the door and let me go? It's very important."
"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't you see that I mean it? Girl, girl, I want you—I need you!"
This time she laughed outright. Then she grew suddenly grave.
"My dear friend, you don't know what you are saying. The gate that you are trying to break down opens upon nothing but misery and wretchedness. If I loved you as a woman ought to love her lover, for your sake and for my own I should still say no—a thousand times no! Now will you open the door and let me go?"
He turned and fumbled for the door-knob like a man in a daze.
"Don't you—don't you think you might learn to—to think of me in that way?—after a while?" he pleaded.
He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But in the corridor she turned and laughed at him again.
"I am going to cure you—you, personally, as well as the sick situation—Mr. Raymer," she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as a spoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to—think of you—in that way—after a while. But I could never, never, never learn to love your mother and your sister."
And with that spiteful thrust she left him.