He laughed now, for it pleased him mightily to have her read his heart so true.
“The main thing is that you told me. And now once more I ask you: will you marry me?”
This startled her indeed. She startled him no less by her brusquerie:
“Certainly not.”
“And why not?”
“I’ll marry no man who is so careless whom he marries as you are.”
CHAPTER IX
The whimsical solemnity of this made him roar. But a man does not love a woman the less for being feminine, and when she thwarts him by a womanliness she delights him excruciatingly.