"Don't do that! Don't! Don't! You make me worse by your dreadful silence! Oh, if you really loved me!"
"You cannot doubt that!" he cried out, wheeling suddenly round. "You know how I love you! Don't you?" He gripped her by the shoulders and swung her to face him.
She trembled and gave a sobbing little laugh. As suddenly as it had come, her anger left her.
"Oh, yes, yes! You do love me, Dicky?" She twined her arms about his neck and shrank closer.
"God help me, yes!" he groaned, thrusting her away. "And you—you care for no one save yourself!"
"No! No!" she cried, pressing up to him again. "Do not say that, Dick. Indeed, I love you, but I cannot live without gaiety—you know I cannot. Oh, I do not doubt but what I am very selfish, but 'tis the way I am fashioned, and I cannot change my nature. And now I have hurt you, and I did not mean to! I did not mean to!"
"My dear, I know you did not; but try to be less a child, I beg of you! You are so uncontrolled, so—"
"I knew you would say that," she answered in a dead voice. "You do not understand me. You expect me to be good, and patient, and forbearing, and I tell you 'tis not in my nature."
"But, Lavinia, you can control your passions," he said gently.
"No! I cannot! We Belmanoirs—as God made us, so we are—and He made us spendthrift, and pleasure-loving, and mad!" She walked slowly to the door. "But you do not understand, and you try to make me staid, and thoughtful, and a good mother, when I am dying for life, and excitement, and care not that for housewifery!" She opened the door slowly. "And now my head aches, and you look grave and say 'tis my wicked temper, when I want you to be sorry, and to be ready to do anything to comfort me. Why can you not take me to London, when you know how I long to be there, instead of in this gloomy house with nought to do, save mind my child and my needle? I am so tired of it all! So very tired of it all!"