"You make a jest of me," he said in an offended tone.
"And why so, sir? I refused to marry you when you were poor."
"Do you think I've forgotten it?" he demanded.
"Now, if I married you, people would say I took back my 'No' because of your rise in the world. Why, even you once spoke as though you thought I might be influenced by such sordid considerations."
"You do not believe--you never have believed--that I thought you capable of such a vile thing," he responded hotly. "You seized on that as a means to hold me off. You must needs play your game of hide-and-seek till you are weary, regardless of my pain and despair."
"The world would say I married you for your money," she continued, paying no heed to his words. "You know how quick it is to misinterpret the best of motives."
"If they said that they 'd lie, Bessie," said Moore. "Save that I have paid my debts and incurred no others, I 'm no richer, for as yet I 've made no fortune. On my honor, I 'm still as poor as you are pretty, and the glass will show you I must be little better than a beggar. Like your father, dearest, my future--all my hope of wealth and fame these next few years--depends upon the Regent's favor, so it couldn't be for aught but love. Ah, alanna, say you 'll have me?"
"No," she answered with great emphasis, and crossed the room. Once on the other side she repeated her reply, but this time in a tone soft and cooing, but if she expected by this last manoeuvre to elicit further wooing from her lover she made a mistake, for, justly wrathful at the treatment she accorded him, he threw caution to the winds.
"So?" he cried, hoarsely. "You still refuse? Then listen to me. I 've courted you from the first day I saw you. From the moment our eyes met I 've loved you faithfully and truly. I 've sung to you of love--I 've talked to you of love--I 've begged for it upon my knees--and you? You have laughed at me. Because my heart was full of you there was no room for resentment, and I, too, laughed and made a jest of what was breaking it. That is past; I've offered it to you for the last time. I 'll never again ask you to be my wife."
"Oh," said the girl, momentarily shocked at his vehemence, but quickly recovering. "Tom, you 'll never again ask me to marry you?"