"Cousin!" cried I; and then she was on her feet too, her face all ablaze.
"Yes, Cousin!" cried she; "and never any more than that. You have acted very well, Cousin Roger; and I thank you for that compliment—that you thought it worth while to play the part—and for your great kindness to a poor country maid. I had thought it to be all over long ago—before you went away; or I would not have behaved as I have. But since you have considered it again carefully, and chosen to—to insult me after all; I have no answer at all to give, except No, a thousand times over."
"Why, Cousin—" I began again.
She stamped her foot. I could not have imagined she could be so angry.
"Wait till I have done," she said—"I do not know what my father thinks of me; but I suppose that you and he have designed all this; and led me on to make a fool of myself—Oh! Let me go! let me go!"
Oh! the triple fool that I was! Yet who had ever taught me the ways of love, or what women mean, or what their hearts are like? If I had been one half the man that I thought myself, I would have seized her there, and forced back her foolishness with kisses, and vowed that, conspirator or not, she must have me; that we knew one another too well to play false coin like this. Or I should have blazed at her in return; and told her that she lied in thinking I was as base as that. Why, I should have just borne myself like a lover to whom love is all, and dignity and wounded pride nothing; for what else is there but love, sacred or profane, in the whole world that God has made? If I had done that! If only I had done that then! But I suppose that I was no lover then.
So I drew back, smarting and wounded; and let her go by; and a minute later I heard the door of her chamber slam behind her, and the key turn.
* * * * *
For myself I went out very slowly, five minutes after, and upstairs to my own chamber, and began to consider what things I must take with me on the morrow; for I would not stay another day in the house where I had been so insulted and denied.