"I would rather give you the charge of my property, sir. The other is, you don't very well know what."
"My brother would be the better person to perform the first duty, probably," Rufus returned, with a little of his old- fashioned haughtiness of style.
Elizabeth's lips parted and her eye flashed, but as she was not looking at him, it only flashed into the water. Both stood proudly silent and still. Elizabeth was the first to speak, and her tone was gentle, whatever the words might be.
"You cannot have your wish in this matter, Mr. Landholm, and it would be no blessing to you if you could. I trust it will be no great grief to you that you cannot."
"My grief is my own," said Rufus with a mixture of expressions. "How should that be no blessing to me, which it is the greatest desire of my life to obtain, Miss Haye?"
"I don't think it is," said Elizabeth. "At least it will not be. You will find that it is not. It is not the desire of mine, Mr. Landholm."
There was silence again, a mortified silence on one part, — for a little space.
"You will do justice to my motives?" he said. "I have a right to ask that, for I deserve so much of you. If my suit had been an ungenerous one, it might better have been pressed years ago than now."
"Why was it not?" said Elizabeth.
It was the turn of Rufus's eyes to flash, and his lips and teeth saluted each other vexedly.