"You may laugh at him still," said the girl. "No one that I know has set any net for you."
"You have," he sniggered. "Aye, and caught me."
"I!" laughed Mehetabel contemptuously, "I spread a net for you? It is you who pursue and pester me. I never gave you a thought save how to make you keep at arm's length."
"You say that to me." His color went.
"It is ridiculous, it is insulting of you to speak to me of netting and catching. What do I want of you save to be let go my way."
"Come, Mehetabel," said the Broom-Squire caressingly, "we won't quarrel about words. I didn't mean what you have put on me. I want you to come and be my wife. It isn't only that I've had a quarrel with my sister. There's more than that. There is something like a stoat at my heart, biting there, and I have no rest till you say—'I'll have you, Jonas!'"
"The stoat must hang on. I can't say that."
"Why not?"
"I am not obliged to give a reason."
"Will you not have me?"