“Sacrifice!” he said. “Who talked of sacrificing you? Who wishes to sacrifice you? I only want—”
“One doesn’t know—with a man like that one doesn’t know where it would lead to.”
“Then you think he’s a thundering blackguard? And yet you defended him just now, said perhaps I couldn’t paint him just because I’d made up my mind he was a brute. You’re a mass of contradictions.”
“I don’t say he’s bad. He may not be bad.”
“Fact is, as I said, you’re in a mortal funk of him.”
“I am not!” she said, with sudden anger. “No one shall say I’m afraid of any man. You can ask anyone who knows me really well, and you will always hear the same story. I’m afraid of no one and nothing, and I’ve proved it again and again.”
“Well then, what’s to prevent you proving it to me, my girl?”
“I will!”
She lifted her chin and looked suddenly impudent.
“What do you wish me to do to prove it?” she asked him defiantly.