'I cannot,' she answered. Then, 'Cannot you understand?' she cried, her face scarlet. 'I did not know until--until you went to kiss me.'
'But--oh, I say--but you love me?' he protested.
'No, my lord,' she said firmly. 'No. And there, you must do me the justice to acknowledge that I never said I did.'
He dashed his hat on the floor: he was almost weeping. 'Oh, damme!' he cried, 'a woman should not--should not treat a man like this. It's low. It's cruel! It's--'
A knock on the door stopped him. Recollection of the listeners, whom he had momentarily forgotten, revived, and overwhelmed him. With an oath he sprang to shut the door, but before he could intervene Mr. Pomeroy appeared smiling on the threshold; and behind him the reluctant tutor.
Lord Almeric swore, and Julia, affronted by the presence of strangers at such a time, drew back, frowning. But Bully Pomeroy would see nothing. 'A thousand pardons if I intrude,' he said, bowing this way and that, that he might hide a lurking grin. 'But his lordship was good enough to say a while ago, that he would present us to the lady who had consented to make him happy. We little thought last night, ma'am, that so much beauty and so much goodness were reserved for one of us.'
Lord Almeric looked ready to cry. Julia, darkly red, was certain that they had overheard; she stood glaring at the intruders, her foot tapping the floor. No one answered, and Mr. Pomeroy, after looking from one to the other in assumed surprise, pretended to hit on the reason. 'Oh, I see; I spoil sport!' he cried with coarse joviality. 'Curse me if I meant to! I fear we have come mal à propos, my lord, and the sooner we are gone the better.
'And though she found his usage rough,
Yet in a man 'twas well enough!'
he hummed, with his head on one side and an impudent leer. 'We are interrupting the turtledoves, Mr. Thomasson, and had better be gone.'
'Curse you! Why did you ever come?' my lord cried furiously. 'But she won't have me. So there! Now you know.'