She moved back a pace or two from him, her lips curling with contempt.
"Your appeal was but a wretched farce—it is worse than useless—it is despicable," she said, with an accent that made him writhe like a whipped cur.
"Will nothing move you?" he passionately cried.
"Nothing."
"By Heaven! then I will meet you blade to blade!" he cried, furiously, and springing to his feet, his eyes blazing with passion. "If entreaties will not move you—if neither bribes nor promises will cause you to yield—we will try what lawful authority will do. I have no intention of being made the laughing stock of the world, I assure you; and, hereafter, I command that you conduct yourself in a manner becoming the position which I have given you. In the first place, then, to-morrow morning, you will breakfast in the dining-room with the family—do you hear?"
Edith had stood calmly regarding him during this speech; but, wishing him to go on, if he had anything further to say, she did not attempt to reply as he paused after the above question.
"Immediately after breakfast," he resumed, with something less of excitement, and not feeling very comfortable beneath her unwavering glance, "we shall return to the city, and the following morning you and I will start for St. Augustine, Florida—thence go to California and later to Europe."
The young girl straightened herself to her full height, and she had never seemed more lovely than at that moment.
"Monsieur Correlli," she said, in a voice that rang with an irrevocable decision, "I shall never go to Florida with you, nor yet to California, neither to Europe; I shall never appear anywhere with you in public, neither will I ever break bread with you, at any table. There, sir, you have my answer to your 'commands.' Now, let me pass."
Without waiting to see what effect her remarks might have upon him, she pushed resolutely by him and went swiftly upstairs to her room.