“Yes, sir.”
“Miss Germaine, I—I’m thunderstruck! I—I’m confounded! I—I am utterly confounded! Miss Germaine, you do not mean it; you cannot mean it! it’s impossible you can mean it! Refuse me! Oh, it is utterly impossible you can mean it!”
“On the contrary, wonderful as it seems, I must distinctly and unequivocally decline the honor.” And Erminie’s look of calm determination showed her resolution was not to be shaken. Judge Lawless rose to his feet and confronted her. Indignation, humiliation, anger, wounded pride, mortification, jealousy, and a dozen other disagreeable feelings, flushing his face until its reflection fairly imparted a rosy hue to his snow-white shirt bosom.
“Miss Germaine, am I to understand that you refuse to to marry me?”
“Decidedly, sir.”
“May I ask your reason for this refusal, Miss Germaine?”
“I recognize no right by which you are privileged to question me, Judge Lawless, but because of the respect I own one so much my senior, I will say that, first, I do not love you; second, even if I did, I would not marry one who looks upon me as so far beneath him; and third—” She paused, caught his eye fixed upon her, and colored more vividly than before.
“Well, Miss Germaine, and third,” he said, sarcastically.
“I will answer no more such questions, Judge Lawless,” she said, with proud indignation; “and I repeat it once again, I cannot be your wife.”
“That remains to be seen, Miss Germaine. There are more ways than one of winning a lady; I have tried one, and failed; now I shall have recourse to another.”