“How uncertain you are!” he exclaimed, as he rose to pick up his property. “There are times when you can take a joke pleasantly, and laugh at it.”
He sat down again, lighted his cigar, and smoked a few minutes in silence. Then he turned to her. “Don’t you think it is time, Charlotte, that you and I brought ourselves to an anchor?”
“No, I don’t,” she bluntly answered.
“But I say it is,” he resumed. “And I mean it to be done.”
“You mean!”
Something in the tone roused him, and he gazed at her with surprise. “You are not going from your promise, Charlotte?”
“I don’t remember that I made any distinct promise,” said she.
Mr. Rodolf Pain grew heated. “You know that you did, Charlotte. You know that you engaged yourself irrevocably to me——”
“Irrevocably!” she slightingly interrupted. “How you misapply words!”
“It was as irrevocable as promise can be. Have you not led me on, this twelvemonth past, believing month after month that you would be my wife the next? And, month after month, you have put me off upon the most frivolous pretexts!”