“Say! Lady Joan!” he began. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to butt in.”
“Then go away,” she commanded. “Instantly—instantly!”
She knew he must see that she spoke almost through her teeth in her effort to control her sobbing breath. But he made no move toward leaving her. He even drew nearer, looking at her in a sort of meditative, obstinate way.
“N-no,” he replied deliberately. “I guess—I won’t.”
“You won’t?” Lady Joan repeated after him. “Then I will.”
He made a stride forward and laid his hand on her arm.
“No. Not on your life. You won’t, either—if I can help it. And you’re going to let me help it.”
Almost any one but herself—any one, at least, who did not resent his very existence—would have felt the drop in his voice which suddenly struck the note of boyish, friendly appeal in the last sentence. “You’re going to let me,” he repeated.
She stood looking down at the daring, unconscious hand on her arm.
“I suppose,” she said, with cutting slowness, “that you do not even know that you are insolent. Take your hand away,” in arrogant command.