“No, but—but you won’t understand!” he answered, almost querulously. He was quite chapfallen. “You don’t listen to me. I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife. Your father said I might come to you, and—and ask you. And—and you’ll say ‘Yes,’ won’t you? That’s a good girl!”
“Never!” she answered.
He stared at her, turning red. “Oh, nonsense!” he stammered. And he made as if he would go nearer. “You don’t mean it. My dear girl! Listen to me! I do love you! I do indeed! And I—I tell you what it is, I never loved any woman——”
But she looked at him in such a way that he could not go on. “Do not say those things!” she said. And her austerity was terrible to him. “And go, if you please. My father, if he sent you to me——”
“He did!”
“Then he did not,” she replied with dignity, “understand my feelings.”
“But—but you must marry someone,” he complained. “You know—you’re making a great fuss about nothing!”
“Nothing!” she cried, her eyes sparkling. “You insult me, Mr. Flixton, and——”
“If a man may not kiss the girl he wants to marry——”
“If she does not want to marry him?”