“Yes,” she said, “you are. And if you say you are not, then you are a liar, and I don’t like liars.”
Then something happened to Hugo Cypress; and, after all, he was thirty-four, and she only twenty. He glared down at Shirley St. George, and from his mouth issued reasonable and critical noises, as befitted a man of thirty-four who has offered his hand five times running to a slip of a girl of twenty.
“Shirley,” he said, “listen to me. You are a very pretty young lady. I have so far been so shy with you that I have not been able to tell you how beautiful I think you are——”
“Thank you, Hugo,” she said very softly. And she tempted him exceedingly, but he continued on his manly way, glaring at a point half-way between her right ear and her left shoulder.
“Nor have I been able to tell you, Shirley, how I love you. That was because I was shy—but I have now finished with being shy. I adore you so frightfully, my dear, that I have made myself a carpet for you to walk on. And you have taken advantage of me, that’s what you’ve done. Carpets get frayed. You have treated me, Shirley, exactly as a heartless, meretricious woman of thirty might treat an infatuated soap-manufacturer. That is, perhaps, because you are used to men being in love with you, and know that they will love you all the more the worse you treat them. Perhaps you are right, Shirley. But I can’t bear it any more, and so I am now going to leave this building and your life....” And Hugo went towards the door with a firm step.
“You’re not going, Hugo!” It was a cry.
“I am indeed, Shirley. Good-bye. And God bless you.”
“Oh, dear, every man says ‘God bless you!’” cried Shirley. “It is the most final and most bitter thing they can say, for they say it with a prayer to the devil in their hearts. Go away, Hugo Cypress. I hate you.”
“That’s why I am saying good-bye, Shirley.”
“But surely you can’t go without proposing to me for the sixth and last time!” And that was a cry.