“You have no right to speak to me like that,” she answered, still avoiding his eyes, and striving to show proper anger; “no gentleman would think of taking advantage of a lady so.”
“I care not what is right or wrong. Look up, and tell me that you hate me. Dolly, I suppose you do.”
“Then you are quite wrong”—she gave him one bright glance of contradiction; “no. I have always been so sorry for you, and for all your troubles. You must not ask me to say more.”
“But I must; I must. That is the very thing that I must do. Only say that you love me, Dolly. Dolly darling, tell me that. Or let your lovely eyes say it for you.”
“My lovely eyes must not tell stories”—they were gazing softly at him now—“and I don't think I can say it—yet.”
“But you will—you shall!” he exclaimed, with passion growing as he drew her near; “you shall not slip from me, you shall not stir, until you have answered me one question—is there anybody else, my Dolly?”
“You frighten me. You forget who I am. Of course there are a great many else, as you call it; and I am not to be called, for a moment, YOUR DOLLY.”
“No, not for a moment, but forever.” Carne was accustomed to the ways of girls, and read all their words by the light of their eyes. “Your little heart begins to know who loves it better than all the world put together. And for that reason I will leave you now. Farewell, my darling; I conquer myself, for the sake of what is worth a thousand of it.”
Dolly was in very sad confusion, and scarcely knew what she might do next—that is to say, if he still went on. Pleasant conceit and bright coquetry ill supply the place of honest pride and gentle self-respect, such as Faith was blest with. Carne might have kissed Dolly a hundred times, without much resistance, for his stronger will had mastered hers; but she would have hated him afterwards. He did not kiss her once; and she almost wished that he had offered one—one little tribute of affection (as the Valentines express it)—as soon as he was gone, and the crisis of not knowing what to do was past. “I should have let him—I believe I should,” she reflected, sagely recovering herself; “but how glad I ought to be that he didn't! And I do hope he won't come back again. The next time I meet him, I shall sink into the earth.”
For her hat had fallen off, and her hair was out of order, and she saw two crinkles near the buckle of her waist; and she had not so much as a looking-glass to be sure that she looked nice again. With a heavy sigh for all these woes, she gathered a flossy bud of willow, and fixed it on her breast-knot, to defy the world; and then, without heed of the sea, sun, or sands, went home with short breath, and quick blushes, and some wonder; for no man's arm, except her father's, had ever been round her waist till now.