"Mr. Dalhousie," he repeated with elaborate distinctness. "When d' I--draw that--title?"
The girl sat eyeing him with frosty calm: a look which covered rage within, not unmingled with perturbation....
He was a neighbor of hers, this audacious youth, though not of Washington Street; impecunious, and hence negligible; moreover somewhat notorious of late for a too vivid behavior: the distant bowing acquaintance of many years. This till the moment of indiscretion last May; when, encountering his dashing attractions in the boredom of a dull resort, far from her mother's restrictive eye, she had for an idle fortnight allowed the relation between them to become undeniably changed. Foolish indeed; but really she had thought--or now really thought she had thought--that the impossible youth took it all no more seriously than she. Not till her return home last month had he revealed his complete untrustworthiness: presuming, as she termed it, making claims and advances, putting her to trouble to keep her vernal unwisdom from her mother. Still, she had thought she had disposed of him at last....
Now there sat the unwelcome swain, her boarder, so close that she could have touched him. And her gaze upon him was like arctic snowblink: an odd look in pretty young eyes.
"You've no right to force yourself upon me in this way," said she. "You must get out of my boat at once."
"Oh, no, I mustn't, Carlisle. That's where you make--mistake. You've put me off--too often. Now--the time's come."
"You must be out of your senses. This is outrageous. I insist--I demand that you get out of my boat immediately."
"When d' ju--listen when I--demanded?"
His heavy resoluteness reduced her suddenly to the weakness of saying: "A gentleman wouldn't do such a thing.... You will regret this."
"Man," said Dalhousie, with the same labored slowness, "comes before gen'leman. An' the regrets--will be yours. I've come--to have a talk."