“Try me!” said Fitz, with a light in his eyes that she could not meet.
“And then there’s another thing,” she went on hurriedly. “I know it sounds horrid to say it, but—it’s not only that three years—you are so young for your age. I’m not a reasonable creature like Georgia; I simply long to be made to obey, whether I like it or not. I feel that I want a master, but I could make you do what I liked.”
“Could you? But perhaps I could make you do what I liked. Just look at me for a moment.”
But Mabel covered her eyes. “No, I won’t. It sounds as if I had been inviting you to master me, which wouldn’t be at all what I meant. Please understand, once for all, that I don’t care for you enough to marry you.”
“Very well. But you will one day. If I am young, there’s one good thing about it—I can wait.”
“It’s no good whatever your thinking that I shall change.”
“That is my business, please. I presume my thoughts are my own? and I feel that I shall teach you to love me yet.”
“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Mabel indignantly, “that it was like you to persecute a woman who had refused you.”
“Don’t be afraid. I shall not persecute you; I shall simply wait.”
“And try to make me miserable by looking doleful? I call that persecution, just the same. No, really, if you are going to be so disagreeable, I shall have to speak to my brother, and ask him to get you transferred somewhere else, and that would be very bad for your prospects.”