'Like this?' she said, rising, and sitting down again. 'You think it is above my station?'
He shrugged his shoulders, declining to put his views into words; instead, 'What does it all mean?' he said.
'What do you suppose?' she asked, averting her eyes for the first time.
'Well, of course--you may be here to meet Dunborough,' he answered bluntly. 'His mother seems to think that he is going to marry you.'
'And what do you think, sir?'
'I?' said Sir George, reverting to the easy, half-insolent tone she hated. And he tapped his Paris snuff-box and spoke with tantalising slowness. 'Well, if that be the case, I should advise you to see that Mr. Dunborough's surplice--covers a parson.'
She sat still and silent for a full half-minute after he had spoken. Then she rose without a word, and without looking at him; and, walking away to the farther end of the bridge, sat down there with her shoulder turned to him.
Soane felt himself rebuffed, and for a moment let his anger get the better of him. 'D--n the girl, I only spoke for her own good!' he muttered; then reflecting that if he followed her she might remove again and make him ridiculous, he rose to go into the house. But apparently that was not what she wished. He was scarcely on his legs before she turned her head, saw that he was going, and imperiously beckoned to him.
He went to her, wondering as much at her audacity as her pettishness. When he reached her, 'Sir George,' she said, retaining her seat and looking gravely at him, while he stood before her like a boy undergoing correction, 'you have twice insulted me--once in Oxford when, believing Mr. Dunborough's hurt lay at my door, I was doing what I could to repair it; and again to-day. If you wish to see more of me, you must refrain from doing so a third time. You know, a third time--you know what a third time does. And more--one moment, if you please. I must ask you to treat me differently. I make no claim to be a gentlewoman, but my condition is altered. A relation has left me a--a fortune, and when I met you here last night I was on my way to Bath to claim it.'
Sir George passed from the surprise into which the first part of this speech had thrown him, to surprise still greater. At last, 'I am vastly glad to hear it,' he said. 'For most of us it is easier to drop a fortune than to find one.'