“Why not, Jinny?” He bent down with sudden passion, all the cautious Cornishman’s long-wavering desires clenched by the discovery of her high educational endowments and concreted by actual contact with the desirable waist. “Why not go to chapel together and be done with it, once for all?”
“Done with what?” she murmured, reddening.
“Separating. Let me keep off the crowd always.”
“Hush! They’ll hear you.”
“No, they won’t. What do you say?”
“Be quiet! I want to hear the bidding.”
“Shall we publish the banns?”
Jinny closed her lips obstinately.
“Won’t you speak? You know I can buy out half Little Bradmarsh.”
In her silence the voice of the auctioneer possessed the situation.