"You don't?—you are sure you don't? Oh, very well! If that be really so, then I had better keep my message to myself."
"Message!—what message?"
"You know a man does not like to be refused; and so, if you really do not care for him, why, I had better hold my peace. He is young, and he is volatile enough.... And, indeed, I have wondered, Ella, sometimes, how you ever came to take a fancy to him; but I am forgetting. It was my mistake. You never have taken a fancy to him."
"How you do run on!" she said, taking the last rose out of her hair; for she was standing before the glass, undoing her braids; the sisters, having dismissed their attendant, that they might have a comfortable chat together. And then the hair came all tumbling over her shoulders, and upon her white muslin dressing-gown, and she looked most beautiful—half pleasant, half angry—as she turned round; and, trying to frown with her eyes, whilst her lips smiled, said—
"Cle., you are the most intolerable girl in the world."
Cle. smiled, looked down, and said nothing.
"You may as well tell me, though."
"No, I won't, unless you will be a true girl—own what you ought to own—say what you ought to say—that you do not quite hate him. You really may say that—and then we will see about it."
"Hate him! Did I say I hated him?"
"Or, pretended you did. Or, that he was indifferent to you."