"I do not know what you call want of consideration," returned Garth, with one of his rare frowns. "I should have thought if you cared for me that trouble would have drawn us closer together, that this was the time of all others to speak."
"If I cared for you!" with reproachful sweetness. "Oh, Mr. Clayton, how can you say such harsh things? and to me of all persons in the world! Is it my fault that darling Flo is ill, and that Beattie is so young and such a wretched manager that one dares not trust things to her for a long time yet? Can I help not being my own mistress like other women, and having so many responsibilities—poor papa, and the girls, and the school, and hundreds of things?" she finished with a little pathos.
But Garth was not to be so easily appeased. His strong will was roused by opposition, and Dora must learn that he was not a man to be trifled with. A moment before he had felt a longing to press his lips to that smooth, golden coil, but now all such desire had left him.
"This is all nonsense," he returned, almost harshly. "We have known each other all our lives, and this has been understood between us. There are no insuperable obstacles—none, or I would not have spoken. Beatrix is seventeen, and she must learn to manage as other girls do. If you mean to sacrifice your life for a mistaken sense of duty you have no right to spoil mine with all this waiting. I am not to call you Dora; I am not to be any more to you than I have been. What does all this folly mean," finished Garth, with angry excitement.
"It means that things cannot be different just now," replied Dora, with real tremulousness in her voice, and now again there came that soft mistiness in her eyes. She was not offended at her lover's plain speaking; she liked Garth all the better for that manly outburst of independence. He was a little more difficult to manage than she had thought, but she was in no fear of ultimate results; he was straining at his curb, that was all.
"You must not be angry with me because I am disappointing you," she went on, laying her hand upon his coat-sleeve. "It is not my fault that everything depends on me, and that Beattie is so helpless. Of course if one could do as one wished—" and here there was a swift downward glance, but Garth broke in upon her impatiently.
"All this is worse than nothing," observed the exasperated young man. "It must be yea, yea, or nay, nay, with me; this going backwards and forwards and holding one's faith in a leash would never do for me. How could a man answer for himself under such circumstances? If you send me away from you you will find it very hard to recall me, Dora!" with a sudden change of voice, at once injured and affectionate, and which went far to mollify the effect of his former harshness.
"You will always know I cared, and that one could not do as one wished. If we are Christians we know that duty cannot be shirked," began Dora with beautiful solemnity, and a certain brightness of earnestness in her blue eyes; but at that moment her father entered.
"Papa," she said, as Garth rose hastily, almost shaking off her hand in his excitement, "what a long nap you have been taking! Mr. Clayton and I have been talking for ever so long, and the tea is quite cold."
"I hope not, Dorrie," observed Mr. Cunningham, seating himself comfortably in his elbow-chair and warming his white hand over the blaze.