"If you will let me go—"
He loosed his grasp and I ostentatiously chafed my wrists. I was in a fury. I was driven to madness by the thought that John might force a quarrel upon Ned—the man I had rejected and the man that had rejected me!
"I'll never marry you nor any poor man!" I cried out. "What have you to offer me? What can you do? Oh, yes, you can come and insult me, and talk to me of love—Love! The love that would make me a poor man's drudge!"
Again I thrust his ring at him, the opal spitting angry blue and orange fires. I thought he would have struck at it. Heaven knows what mad instinct was at the back of his brain. I believe every man's a brute when the woman he loves defies him. I think his fingers tingled for the Cave man's club. At any rate, I shrank in terror from his eyes.
But quickly the red light sank in them, and a puzzled look grew there instead, turning them very soft and pitiful.
"Nelly, I cannot think you serious," he said. "We have always talked of marriage, and—is it an insult to press you for the day? Heart of me, I've been so much worried about you! Are you very sure that you have chosen the wisest part? If you are, I can only leave you to think it over, perhaps to—"
"Don't preach!"
I flung out at him a torrent of abusive words, resolved that he should think about me what he chose, so long as it was not the truth.
He had no plea for himself; he saw that it would be useless. I stabbed him the more viciously as the anger died out of his face and left it only grave and pained. He looked older than I had ever seen him before; and on his temple, where he turned toward the window, gleamed a little streak of gray.
"But, Nelly, what will you do?" he said at last.