He smiled, gave her a little nod, and then dropping her hand sauntered into the house.
"It is the most foolish thing I have ever heard of," she said to herself, pettishly, as she looked after him. "I can't think how such an idea ever occurred to him. He must have known that even if I had not determined as I have done to devote myself to our cause, he was the last sort of man I should ever have thought of marrying. Of course he is nice and I always thought so, but what is niceness when he has no aims, no ambitions in life, and he is content to waste it as he is doing."
Five minutes later Anna Treadwyn joined her in the garden.
"So I was right after all, Mary?"
"How do you know, do you mean to say that he has told you?"
"Not exactly, but one can use one's eyes, I suppose. He said nothing last night about going away, and now he is leaving by this afternoon's coach; besides, although he laughed and talked as usual one could see with half an eye that it was forced. So you have actually refused him?"
"Of course I have, how can you ask such a question? It was the most perfectly absurd idea I ever heard of."
"Well, I hope that you will never be sorry for it, Mary."
"There is not much fear of that," Mary said, with a toss of her head, "and let me say that it is not very polite, either of you or him, to think that I should be ready to give up all my plans in life, the first time I am asked, and that by a gentleman who has not the slightest sympathy with them. It is a very silly and tiresome affair altogether, and I do hope I shall never hear anything of it again."