“And you will not even marry me?”
“No,” groaned the sorely beset Jem.
“Very well. I think it very hard.” There was a palpable, even an exaggerated, droop to the tender and mobile lips; but in the depths of Marcia’s eyes twin devils of defiance and determination danced. “Good-night, Jem. No! You shall not take me downstairs.”
In the motor outside the scandalized Miss Letitia Pritchard, after a wait of an hour and five minutes, commented significantly and with a down-thrust inflection: “Well!”
“Well, Cousin Letty,” said Marcia demurely.
“Are you going to marry that young man, Marcia?”
“How can I? He has refused me.”
“Refused you!” gasped Miss Pritchard.
“Precisely. I am a blighted maiden.”
“Snumph!” sniffed Miss Pritchard. “Don’t you tell me!”