"Mistress Kate," said he, gently, "I do not come here to make you weep. I love you like a gentleman. If you love another, take courage, tell me so, and don't let your father constrain your inclinations. Dearly as I love you, I would not wed your person, and your heart another's: that would be too cruel to you, and" (drawing himself up with sudden majesty) "too unjust to myself."
Kate looked up at him through her tears, and admired this man, who could love ardently, yet be proud and just. And if this appeal to her candor had been made yesterday, she would have said, frankly, "There is one I—esteem." But, since the quarrel, she would not own to herself, far less to another, that she loved a man who had turned his back upon her. So she parried.
"There is no one I love enough to wed," said she. "I am a cold-hearted girl, born to give pain to my betters. But I shall do something desperate to end all this."
"All what?" said he, keenly.
"The whole thing: my unprofitable life."
"Mistress Kate," said Neville, "I asked you, was there another man. If you had answered me, 'In truth there is, but he is poor and my father is averse or the like,' then I would have secretly sought that man, and, as I am very rich, you should have been happy."
"Oh, Mr. Neville, that is very generous, but how meanly you must think of me!"
"And what a bungler you must think me! I tell you, you should never have known. But let that pass; you have answered my question; and you say there is no man you love. Then I say you shall be Dame Neville."
"What, whether I will or no?"
"Yes; whether you think you will or no."