"But I don't want to marry," she cried; "I don't want to marry—any one."
There was a sharp, half-frightened note audible in her voice. For the moment, her whole attitude was that of the inexperienced being who clings instinctively to the rock of present things, and obstinately refuses to be cast into the sea of future possibilities. For the moment, she was blind to the instrument that was forcing her towards those possibilities. To her immature mind it was the choice between the known and the unknown. Then suddenly and accidentally her eyes came back to Milbanke's face, and the personal element in the choice assailed her abruptly.
"Oh, I couldn't!" she cried involuntarily—"I couldn't!—I couldn't!"
She did not intend to hurt him; but cruelty is the prerogative of the young, and she failed to see that he winced before the decisive honesty of her words.
"Am I so—so very distasteful?" he asked in a low, unsteady voice.
She looked at him in silence. It was the inevitable clash of youth and age. She was warm-hearted, she was capable of generous action; but before all else, she was young—the triumphant inheritor of the ages. Life stretched before her, while it lay behind him. She looked at him; and as she looked a wave of revolt—a strong, sudden sense of her individual right to happiness—surged through her.
"Oh, I couldn't!" she cried again—"I couldn't!"
And before Milbanke could reply—before he had time to comprehend the purport of her words—she had turned and fled in the direction of the house, leaving him standing as he was, dazed and petrified.
Upward along the path, Clodagh ran. Her impulse towards flight had been childish, and her thoughts as she sped forward were as unreasonable and confused as a child's. She was vaguely, blindly filled with a desire to escape—from she knew not what; to evade—she knew not what. Her one clear thought was that the prop upon which she had leaned in these days of sorrow and despair had unaccountably and suddenly been withdrawn; and that she stood woefully alone and unprotected.
On she ran, until the archway of the courtyard broke into view; then, without a moment's hesitation, she swerved to the left, sped across the yard, and burst unceremoniously into the kitchen.