“Yes,” he said, “and I will!”
“Ah, but it takes two!” she replied, in tragic accents. “You can’t marry me against my will. Supposing I am not there?”
He allowed the usual empty threat of suicide to pass unheeded.
“I shall ask you to, at any rate,” he said, doggedly.
“Oh, yes, you will ask me!” She was playing so well that she almost enjoyed it. “Oh, yes, you will ask me, because you are a man of honour—and I shall refuse, because I am a woman of honour. I will not be behind Egidia, whom you respect, in that. You are right. She is strong and good. And she loves you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Surely you and I have no need to mince words? She loves you, and if you marry any one, it ought to be Egidia. She is devoted, she is an angel, and she would rather see you dead at her feet, than married to me!”
She never looked round, or she would perhaps have realised the exquisite annoyance she was inflicting on her helpless victim, penned up as he was beside her, powerless to prevent or avoid the stream of tactless heroics she was pouring on him. His forehead was contracted, his hands were clenched together over the doors of the cab.
“We are coming to the more crowded streets now,” he said suddenly, “and it is really very dangerous for you to be seen with me. Had you not better let me get out, and leave you to go the rest of the way alone?”
She replied, with desperate and intentional incisiveness, “I permit you to leave me, since you wish it.”