“I’m not going to marry Major King, father, now or at any future time,” said she, speaking slowly, her words coming with coldness from her lips.
“Silence! you have nothing to say, nothing to do but obey!” Colonel Landcraft blazed up in sudden explosion, after his manner, and set his heel down hard on the floor, making his sword clank in its scabbard on his thigh.
“I have not had much to say,” Frances admitted, bitterly, “but I am going to have a great deal to 232 say in this matter now. Both of you have gone ahead about this thing just as if I was irresponsible, both of you—”
“Hold your tongue, miss! I command you—hold your tongue!”
“It’s the farthest thing from my heart to give you pain, or disappoint you in your calculations of me, father,” she told him, her voice gathering power, her words speed, for she was a warrior like himself, only that her balance was not so easily overthrown; “but I am not going to marry Major King.”
“Heaven and hell!” said Colonel Landcraft, stamping up and down.
“Heaven or hell,” said she, “and not hell—if I can escape it.”
“I’ll not permit this insubordination in a member of my family!” roared the colonel, his face fiery, his rumpled eyebrows knitted in a scowl. “I’ll have obedience, with good grace, and at once, or damn my soul, you’ll leave my house!”
“Major King, if you are a gentleman, sir, you will relieve me of this unwelcome pressure to force me against my inclination. It is quite useless, sir, I tell you most earnestly. I would rather die than marry you—I would rather die!”
“Sir, I have no wish to coerce the lady”—Major King’s voice shook, his words were low—“as she seems to have no preference for me, sir. Miss Landcraft perhaps has placed her heart somewhere else.”