“You want to stay in England, don’t you?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know.”
“As you are here, you might as well stay for awhile,” he said, good-humouredly. “I will find some middle-aged lady to chaperone you, and you can travel a bit.”
“But I don’t like this country. I want to go back to America.”
“Do you want to go with me?”
She made no response, and he continued, “I can’t let you go with any other person. I think you had better wait over a trip.”
“Very well,” she said, with a return to composure, “I will visit Lady Forrest. Shall I go and see her now?”
He nodded, then as she rose he said, softly, “Won’t you kiss your husband, little girl, before you leave him?”
She flung up her head. Wilfulness, wounded pride, and obstinacy were working within her. She knew now that, although his homage was distasteful to her, she had been disturbed by the discontinuance of it. And he was speaking coolly of leaving her. She did not know whether he was in earnest or not. And she was to write to him if she wished to see him. Did he forget that that was a reversal of the natural order of things? The man should seek the woman, not the woman the man. Well, she could convey a lesson to him on that point.
“When I wish to kiss you, I will come to you,” she said, frigidly.