"I don't want to hear any more!"
"You must."
"But, Jack, you're not in love with me!"
He laughed good-naturedly, as though he were humouring a child.
"I expect I'm the best judge of that. Well, you admit that I'm not wholly repellent to you; the difference in religion can be accommodated; I'm not altogether penniless. I want you to marry me, Babs."
"I can't."
She flung out the words as soon as he gave her a chance of speaking. With his dogged, relentless attack, it was surprising that he left her an opportunity of answering; she would hardly have been astonished if he had taken her firmly by the arm and led her home to announce their engagement.
"That means you don't care for me?"
There was no sign of perturbation; but he was watching her closely. One careless word would enable him to demonstrate that she had coquetted with him for her vanity's sake; his memory was relentless, and she could not pretend to convince herself that she had behaved merely as if she "quite liked" him, when a hundred people were gossiping about them.... And he had a passion for demonstrating things; he seemed to be addressing an invisible jury beyond the pillars of the loggia.
"My dear Jack, how could you ever dream of marrying me—thinking of me, as you do?" she demanded with a breathless attempt to start her speech and to overwhelm his massive arguments with rhetoric and drama.