She turned and came towards him, her hands hanging clasped before her.
“That is something I have to speak of. I cannot mention it to Mrs. Clarendon, and if I tell you now it will be done with. I desire that there shall be no kind of settlement. Nothing of the kind is enacted by the will, and I do not wish it. Will you please to see that my wish is respected?”
“Why is it your wish?”
“I can give no reason. I wish it.”
“I imagine there will be very strong opposition, and not only from Mrs. Clarendon. I expect the trustees will have something to say.”
Ada’s eyes flashed; her whole face showed agitation, passionate impatience.
“What does it matter what they say?” she exclaimed. “What are they to me? What is my future to them? If you refuse to give me an assurance that my one desire shall be respected I must turn to Mrs. Clarendon, and that will be hateful to me! I have asked nothing else; but this I wish.”
“You put as much persistence into it as another would in pleading for exactly the opposite,” remarked Lacour, his coolness contrasting strangely with her agitated vehemence. “You know that a wish of yours is a law to me, and I promise you to agree to nothing you would dislike; remember that they cannot do without my assent. But you see,” he added, “that it is not a very easy thing for me to urge. I have already been made to feel quite sufficiently——”
He interrupted himself. Ada waited for him to resume, still standing before him, but he kept silence.
“What have you been made to feel?” she asked, more quietly, her eyes searchingly fixed on him.