"I--I didn't mean to throw it in your face."
"Then what did you mean? You as good as said that I'd been up for sale, and that you'd bought me; but as I didn't understand that I was being bought, I'll hand you back the purchase price, then perhaps I shall be able to call my soul my own."
"I--I--Herbert, don't--don't let's quarrel. I--I--you don't know how I love you."
"Very well, then, and I love you; so that's all right."
"Are you sure you love me? If I were only sure!"
"You may be dead sure; at the same time you must allow me to speak a few plain words. There's something the matter with you, and there has been for some little time; I don't know what it is--it may be a headache, as you say, but if it is it's the kind of headache which, if I were you, I should take something for. You've changed altogether during the last few days; the little girl I used to know wouldn't have tried to bully me into marrying her at a moment's notice, when I told her that I thought it would be better, for both our sakes, that we should wait a little. I promise you that as soon as I see my way I'll come and ask you to name the day, and I hope you'll name an early one. But, in the meantime, where's the hurry? So far as I know you'll get no harm by waiting; it isn't as though I was asking you to wait long--a month or two at most; and it isn't as though you were hard up; you've got the cash, not I. As for leaving the place, I should say the sooner you leave it the better; you've got a home to go to--what's wrong with your home? You can write to me, I can come and see you; or, if I can't manage to come, after a bit you might step over to see me; you might find quarters with a mutual friend--why not? My present advice to you is to take a dose of medicine, that is medicine, and lie down, and sleep it off; then when you're feeling more like yourself you'll see that I'm quite right; and then you might let me know, and we can have another little talk together. In the meantime, as I observed before, I'll say good-day. By the bye, if you do want that money back again, you've only got to let me have a line, and you shall have it."
CHAPTER XIV
[THE PARTING OF THE WAYS]
Mr. Nash strolled leisurely off, lighting another cigar as he went. Elaine could have done nothing to stop him, had her entire future depended on her making the effort. Indeed she only dimly realized that he was going; something seemed to be pressing on her brain, and numbing it; until all at once the pressure lightened, and, with a start, she perceived that he had gone. For a second or two she stood staring about her on all sides, as if, just roused out of sleep, she was wondering where she was. When she understood that he had left her, and had passed out of sight, and that she was alone, oblivious of her smart hat and pretty frock, she sank down on to the grass, just where she was, and hid her face in her hands.
She stayed like that some time; she herself did not know how long; then, uncovering her face, again she looked about her; and, possibly recognizing that nothing was to be gained by behaving like that, she scrambled to her feet, shaking herself, touching herself here and there, where she thought that her costume might stand in need of a touch, then she started to return to the house.