"Then stop. Don't touch me."
"Well, I never!" He had stopped, and he laughed gaily. "What next? This is a funny way to treat your lord and master. Janey, dear, you are forgetting your duties. You're very, very naughty."
He laughed again, and joined his hands in an attitude of devotion.
"There, I'm praying to you—like a repulsed sweetheart, and not like a husband who is being set at defiance. Dicky prays you to make it up. Janey, be nice—be good.... Dear old Janey—don't you know what this means?"
"Yes—it means that you want the money very badly."
Her face, that till now was so white, had flushed to a bright crimson.
"What a horrid thing to say! I'd forgotten all about the money. Why can't you forget it?... No, hang the money. Money isn't everything.... But, Jane, I've been thinking—for a long time—about the way you and I are going on together." And he changed his tone again, and spoke with affected solemnity. "It isn't right, you know. It has been going on a good deal too long, Janey—and it's just how real estrangements begin.... I don't know which of us is to blame—but I want to get back into our jolly old ways."
"That's impossible. We can never get back."
"Oh, rot, my dear. Skittles to that. When we used to have a tiff—well, we always made it up soon. It was like a lovers' squabble, and it only made us fonder of each other.... Janey, I want to make it up."