“It’s shameful for you to act in this way, Gale.” She spoke low and rapidly to her enraged suitor. De Spain alone knew it was to keep her humiliation from his own ears, and he made no effort to follow her quick, pleading words. The moment was most embarrassing for two of the three involved. But nothing that Nan could say would win from her cousin any reprieve.
“When you came back from school I told Duke I was going to marry you. He said, all right,” persisted her cousin stubbornly.
“Gale Morgan, what Uncle Duke said, or didn’t say, has nothing whatever to do with my consent.”
“I told you I was going to marry you.”
“Does that bind me to get married, when I don’t want to?”
“You said you’d marry me.”
Nan exploded: “I never, never said so in this world.” Her voice shook with indignation. “You know that’s a downright falsehood.”
“You said you didn’t care for anybody else,” he fairly bellowed. “Now I want to know whether you’ll marry me if I take you over to Sleepy Cat to-morrow?”
“No!” Nan flung out her answer, reckless of consequence. “I’ll never marry you. Let me go home.”