“Oh no, no, no,” she cried, “it is not true.”
“It is true enough,” he said, sadly, “and I mean to be patient. I cannot believe you care for this man. It is impossible, and I shall wait.”
“No, no, Mr Cyril,” she pleaded. “I can never listen to such words again. Think of your father and your mother. Mr Mallow would never forgive me if he knew I had listened to you like this.”
“Let him remain unforgiving, then,” cried Cyril. “As for my mother, she loves her son too well not to be ready to do anything to make him happy.”
“Pray, pray go,” she moaned.
“No,” he said, sternly, “I will not go. You torture me by your coldness, knowing what you do. Do you wish to drive me to despair?”
“I wish you to go and forget me,” she cried, with spirit. “As a gentleman, Mr Cyril, I ask you, is such a course as this manly?”
He was silent for a few moments, glancing at her sidewise the while.
“No,” he said, “it is neither manly nor gentlemanly, but what can you expect from a miserable wretch against whom all the world seems to turn? Always unsuccessful—always hoping against hope, fighting against fate, I find, now I come home, that the little girl I always thought of when far away has blossomed into a beautiful woman. How, I know not, but I wake to the fact that she has made me love her—idolise her—think of her as the very essence of my being.”
“Mr Cyril,” pleaded Sage; but he kept on.