Hawkshaw was aware of her undisguised preference for Morley Ashton; and though he knew, or feared what her reply would be, the wine he had imbibed, or some strange emotion that stirred within his breast, made him urge the hopeless matter still.
"Ethel," said he, softly, but through his clenched teeth, and while his cheek grew pale with suppressed passion; "you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain?"
Trembling with excitement and annoyance, and while tears started to her eyes, she replied:
"Explain, sir! Why should I be called upon to explain? You know well that since I was seventeen I have been engaged—have loved another."
"At seventeen, interesting age, a girl is in the first flush of womanhood," began Hawkshaw, in his sneering tone; "fresh in feeling and tender in sensibility; the consequence is that, of a necessity, she falls in love with the first fellow, be he good, bad, or indifferent, who presents himself."
"But I did not fall in love, as you phrase it, with the first who presented himself, any more than I am likely to do with the last," replied Ethel, with an air that now was one of unconcealed annoyance. "My sister Rose is a girl whom all allow to be charming, and is as much admired as any in the county, and she has passed seventeen, your rubicon, your girlish equator, your ideal line, without 'falling in love' with anyone——"
"That you know of, Miss Basset," said Hawkshaw, sharply.
"Rose has no secrets from me, sir!"
"Do not let us quarrel, for Heaven's sake. I apologise."
"How tiresome—how impertinent! and yet I dare not tell Morley," sighed Ethel, in her heart, as she continued to walk very fast; but Laurel Lodge was a long way off, and the sunlit waste of the chase stretched for, at least, a mile before them yet.