"Would you?" he repeated; and she half expected to hear him browbeating her. "It's a simple question.... Yes or no.... I want you to tell the jury.... Remember you are on your oath. Come now ... yes or no...."
"Of course not. But, Jack——"
He stopped her with another jerk, as she had foreseen.
"I knew that. The next thing was—I suppose 'suitability' is the best word. I mean we lead different lives, our outlook's different in some ways. I had to consider what chance of success we should have together. Well, you sometimes say that I find fault with everything you do; I think you see now that I've never said a word that your father hasn't said to you a hundred times. It's what everybody was saying, and I think everybody's glad to see that you've come round to their point of view. We all felt that you were too big, you know...."
He hesitated and looked away, frowning again as he tried to remember the sequence of his argument. Barbara shivered instinctively at his hackneyed, hated phrase, but she was struck silent by the sheer audacity of his patronizing assumptions.
"Jack——" she began, but he again held up his hand.
"I don't know whether I ought to have gone to your father," he resumed. "It seemed rather getting hold of the wrong end of the stick to talk to a woman's father before you've talked to the woman herself. Of course, one naturally goes to him for his assent. I happen to know that your people, like you, saw what was in the wind, and, as they were good enough not to pitch me into the street...."
"Jack! Please!"
Barbara leaned to him with her hands appealingly outstretched. In a little while he would rob her of her last cue. By no abuse of language could such pleading be associated with passion, but he was quoting her against herself until it seemed as if she had almost begged him to marry her.
"I've nearly done," he said, smiling for the first time; then he paused to collect himself for a concise summary, and she could have laughed hysterically at the spectacle of a plodding young barrister trying to argue her into marriage. His voice had never changed in timbre; and, if he had occasionally hesitated over a word, he had never lost the train of thought. His chair was as discreetly remote as when he first sat down, one leg thrown comfortably over the other; and he had not thought fit to use one whisper of endearment.