“You’re too young to be my father,” answered Matt, ingenuously.
“Well, say your big brother. I’m interested in you, Matt, very much interested, and I should really like to get to the bottom of the mystery about you; but we must not forget that we’re—well, almost strangers, you know. Besides,” he added, laughing again cheerily, “you are engaged to be married, some day, to a gentleman of fortune.”
Matt sprang up, with heaving bosom and flashing eyes.
“No, I ain’t!” she said. “I hate him!”
“Hate the beautiful Monk of Monkshurst! Monk the beneficent! Monk the sweet-spoken! Impossible!”
“Yes, I hate him,” cried Matt; “and—and—when he kissed me, it made me sick.”
“What, did he? Actually? Kissed you?”
As he spoke, the young man actually felt that he should like to assault the redoubtable Monk.
“Yes, he kissed me—once. If he kisses me again, I’ll stick something into him, or scratch his face.”
And Matt looked black as thunder, and set her pearly teeth angrily together.