"Certainly not, Geraldine. Of course, I know what is due to you. But if Leland revives it of himself, if he still claims you, you cannot refuse to marry him!"
Geraldine felt as if she were choking.
A cruel fate seemed to destine her to a loveless marriage.
Oh, how could her mother be so cruel, so heartless, wrapped up in sordid ambition, reckless of a young heart's misery!
Filled with fear and anger at her threatening fate, she sprang to her feet, crying, passionately:
"Mamma, I do not wish to offend you, but—but—I will not be forced into a loveless marriage. I will be true to Harry, though the whole world oppose me! Why, I would rather have remained a poor salesgirl forever than have lost him, my own true love, by finding myself an heiress!"
The passionate defiance was out, and the mother knew that all her ambitions were likely to be defeated by a girl's perversity.
She called it perversity in her mind. She would not own that it was love—constant, faithful love, that has been the theme of poets since first they struck the sounding lyre.
She did not want to excite the girl any further now, though she determined that in the end she should yield to her mother's will.
Rising from her seat, she quitted the room like a skillful general, though casting one single glance backward that rankled reproachfully in Geraldine's heart.