The girl made no reply. And then Canning struck out:
"My entreaties carry no weight with you, it seems. Well, then I forbid you."
For the first time a tinge of color touched Carlisle's cheek.
"You forbid me?"
He had no sooner said the words than he regretted them. In the beginning nothing of this sort had been within his dreams; had he foreseen the possibility, it is probable that he would have given Carlisle her head at the start without argument. But, once the position taken, he could not bend back his pride to recede. And to him, too, came prodding thoughts, of a bride who was revealing strange sides of her nature, strange unlovelinesses....
"Good God!" broke from him. "With such excessive consideration for two other men, haven't you an atom for the man you are to marry? Hasn't it occurred to you that in a matter seriously involving my life as well as yours, I have a claim, a joint authority with yourself?"
"Occurred to me? It has never been out of my mind."
"Yet you resent it, it seems. I say that I forbid your doing something so full of painful consequences to us both, and you show that you resent it ... Don't you?"
"It's a surprise to me that you would want to use your authority in such a way. But--"
"Then you must have failed to grasp that this act of folly you contemplate, over my entreaty and command, would bring an entirely new element into the situation ..."