For an instant she remains motionless; then she snatches her hand from his shoulder as if it had been stung, crimsons to the roots of her hair, and says, her voice quivering with pain and anger—
"Jack Everard, how—how dare you make me an answer like that? You know how I dislike flippant speeches of the kind."
"Flippant!" he answers hotly. "I did not mean it to be so. Nobody as much in earnest as I am could be flippant. I love you, Cicely Deane, and, though I know I am not worthy of you, I ask you to be my wife on my knees, if you like. Do you think I am in earnest now?"
"Yes," she says, panting a little, and raising her eyes, gleaming, wrathful, defiant, to his eager face. "I believe you are in earnest; and I wish you to understand that I am in earnest too, thoroughly in earnest, when I beg of you, Jack Everard, if you value my esteem, my friendship, never to speak to me on such a subject or in that tone. It—it is eminently painful and distasteful to me."
"Thank you, Miss Deane; you—you speak to the point. I will not incur the risk of losing your esteem and friendship ever again, you may be sure. Good-morning."
He walks from the room without another word, down the stairs and out of the house, forgetting to take his hat and stick from the hall. He stands for a moment leaning against the garden gate, his blue eyes moist, his lips quivering with pain and cruel disappointment, a heavy shower falling on his uncovered head.
At that moment Lady Saunderson's brougham flashes past. She looks out and gives him a brilliant smile, half questioning, half pitying, a smile that goads him to a feeling of impotent desperation.
"I am a lucky fellow—by the powers I am!" he mutters fiercely, with clinched fists.
"Jack, Jack, where are you going? Where's your hat? What's the matter?"
Little Emily Deane's astonished voice recalls him to his senses. He puts up his hand to his sleek dripping head and retraces his steps mechanically, Emily trotting by his side.