Juliet, taken aback by the suddenness of this declaration, particularly after her talk with her father, remained silent.
“Take yore time, Miss Julie,” pleaded Stelton, riding closer to her. “I ain’t in no hurry.” 88
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve said, Mike,” she replied slowly. “I’ve always liked you and I always will, but I don’t love you, and I would sooner tell you now than keep you in suspense. I can’t marry you.”
Stelton bit his lip and his dark face grew even blacker with rage at the futility of his position. With anyone other than Juliet Bissell, perhaps, he realized that insistent pressure of his suit might have favorable results. But this cool, calm girl offered no opportunity for argument or hope.
“Mebbe if yuh waited a bit, yuh might think different about it,” he ventured nevertheless. She shook her head.
“No, Mike, I wouldn’t, I am sure. If you care for me you will never mention this again. And for my part, I shall always remember what you have said to me to-day. It is a sweet thing for a girl to know that a man loves her.”
Such gracious refusals are effective with most men, both because they succeed in closing a tender subject and at the same time leave an unwounded pride. But Stelton was not the ordinary type of lover.
Repressed emotions in somber minds feed and grow fat upon their own substance, and it was inconceivable that Stelton’s genuine though distorted 89 love, an abnormal product of ten long years, should be dismissed thus with a few words.
“Why won’t you marry me?” he demanded, looking angrily into her level, brown eyes.
“I have told you I did not love you. That is the reason and the best reason in the world. Now I ask you to drop the subject.”