'I should have to kill you—or myself,' she replied with the utmost gravity.
'You are mad,' he said again, in the resigned tone of one who states a perfectly established fact.
'If I am mad, you are unutterably cruel,' she said, twisting her fingers together; 'will you answer me, yes or no? I believe it is true,' she rushed on, immolating herself, 'you have fallen in love with some woman in England, and she, naturally, with you. Who is she? You have promised to marry her. You, whom I thought so free and splendid, to load yourself with the inevitable fetters!'
'I should lose caste in your eyes?' he asked, thinking to himself that Eve was, when roused, scarcely a civilised being. 'But if you marry Miloradovitch you will be submitting to the same fetters you think so degrading.'
'Miloradovitch,' she said impatiently, 'Miloradovitch will no more ensnare me than have the score of people I have been engaged to since I last saw you. You are still evading your answer.'
'You will never marry?' he dwelt on his discovery.
'Nobody that I loved,' she replied without hesitation, 'but, Julian, Julian, you don't answer my question?'
'Would you marry me if I wanted you to?' he asked carelessly.
'Not for the world, but why keep me in suspense? only answer me, are you trying to tell me that you have fallen in love? if so, admit it, please, at once, and let me go; don't you see, I am leaving Fru Thyregod on one side, I ask you in all humility now, Julian.'
'For perhaps the fiftieth time since you were thirteen,' he said, smiling.