She recovered herself with a kind of gasp. “Are you not going a little too fast?” she said, trying to smile, and speaking with something of her ordinary manner. “I did not know that my choice was limited to the two you mention, Mr. Clode, or that I had to choose one at all.”
“I think you must,” was his only answer. “You must choose between us.” Then, with a sudden movement, he rose and stood over her. “Laura!” he said in a different tone, in a low voice, which thrilled through her and awoke feelings and emotions hitherto asleep. “Laura, do not play with me! I am a man. Is he more? Is he as much? I love you with all my being! He cares only to kill time with you! Will you throw me over because he is a little richer, because I am the curate and he is the rector? If so, well, tell me, and I shall understand you!”
It was not the way she had thought he would end. The force, the abruptness, the almost menace of the last four words took her by surprise and subdued her afresh. If she had had any doubt before which of the two men had her liking, she had none now. She knew that Clode’s little finger was more to her than Lindo’s whole hand; for, like most women, she had a secret admiration for force, even when exercised without much regard to good taste.
“You need not speak to me like that,” she said, in gentle deprecation of his manner.
He stooped over her. “Laura,” he said, “do you really mean it? Do you mean you will——”
“Wait, please!” she answered, recovering a little of her ascendency. “Give me a little time. I want to think something out.”
But time to think was just what he feared—ignorant as yet of his true position—to give her; and his face grew dark and sullen again. “No,” he said, “I will not!”
She rose suddenly. “You will do as I ask you now,” she said, asserting herself bravely, “or I shall leave you.”
He bowed silently, and she sat down again. “Sit down, please,” she said to him. He obeyed her. “Now,” she continued, raising her hand so as to shade her eyes from the fire, “I will be candid with you, Mr. Clode. If I had no other alternative than the one you have mentioned—to choose between you and Mr. Lindo—I—I should certainly prefer you. No!” she continued sharply, bidding him with her hand to keep his seat, “hear me out, please. You have not stated the case correctly. In the first place—well, you put me in the awkward position of having to confess that Mr. Lindo has made no such proposal as you seem to fancy; and, secondly, there are others in the world.”
“I do not care,” the curate exclaimed, his deep voice trembling with exultation—“I do not care though there be millions—now!”