"I cannot transfer my devotion as easily as you imagine," said Ashton in a tone of annoyance. "I have long loved you, and thought of you as the one woman with whom I desired to walk through life. Your refusal, if persisted in, will wreck my happiness."
Grace was tempted to survey somewhat closely the man who thus declared that he should be miserable without her. He did not look like a despairing lover. His sleek black hair and whiskers, the rather insipid regularity of his features, his evident foppish attention to his dress, hardly indicated a soul moved to its lowest depths by romantic and despairing passion.
Self-conceit, vanity, a high degree of self complacency could be read in the major's face, but he did not look like a man who would jump into Lake Michigan, a victim to the tender passion.
Grace did not feel that there was any cause to make herself miserable on her suitors account.
"I hope, Major Ashton," she replied, courteously, "that time may soften whatever disappointment you feel. Pardon my saying that you have never appeared to me the one man with whom I should wish to walk through life, and this being the case, I should wrong both myself and you by accepting you."
"You will consider my proposal? You may change your mind?"
"Do not hope it, Major Ashton," said Grace, firmly. "It can never be. And now you will allow me to bid you good-evening."
She left the room swiftly, and Major Ashton had no choice but to terminate his call.
"Confound the girl!" he muttered, when he reached the street. "She was my trump card, and she has failed me! What shall I do next?"