“I never said, sir, that you were to call me May.”
“No, but you did not prohibit it. I cannot call you Miss Marion, like the servants, or Miss Rowland, like young Marchbanks.”
As he assumed the tone of young Marchbanks when he said this, Marion received it with a burst of laughter. There was nothing particularly amusing in the tone or manners of young Marchbanks, but a mimic has always an easy triumph.
“Alas,” said Eddy, instantly changing his tone, and taking her hand to draw it through his arm, “though they were all going away this moment, it would not be much advantage to us, May, for I must go too, this very day.”
“You, going, Eddy!” this exclamation burst from her in spite of herself. She hastened to add, “Mr. Saumarez, I did not know you were going. Do you really—really mean—” the tears came into her eyes.
He had drawn her hand through his arm, and held it with his other hand. “I can’t stay longer,” he said. “How can I stay longer? There is Archie gone, who might be supposed my attraction: and I daren’t go and say to your father what my real attraction is.”
“Oh that is nothing to me,” said Marion, with a toss of her head, “about your real attraction. Nobody is asking you—you are just welcome to stay or—welcome to go: it is whatever you please.”
“You know very well,” he said, resisting her attempt to snatch away her hand, “that I would never go if I could help it, unless I could carry you off with me; if I could do that, I should not mind.”
“And you know very well,” said Marion, “that you will never do that.”
“I suppose I ought to know; but there are some things that one never can learn. When a man thinks of a girl night and day, he naturally feels that the girl might give a moment now and then to thoughts of him.”