“And I always shall be,” she gulped. “You must try not to feel hurt. You know my father is a very peculiar man, and has an awful will, and nobody was ever so obstinate.”
Then Alan' s sense of the great injustice of the thing rose up within him and his blood began to boil. “Perhaps I ought to take my name off your card,” he said, drawing himself up slightly; “if he were to hear that I talked to you to-night he might make it unpleasant for you.”
“If you do I shall never—never forgive you,” she answered, in a voice that shook. There was, too, a glistening in her eyes, as if tears were springing. “Wouldn't that show that you harbored ill-will against me, when I am so helpless and troubled?”
“Yes, it would; and I shall come back,” he made answer. He rose, for Hillhouse, calling loudly over his shoulder to some one, was thrusting his bowed arm down towards her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said to Dolly. “I didn't know they had called the march. We've got some ice-cream hid out up-stairs, and some of us are going for it. Won't you take some, Bishop?”
“No, thank you,” said Alan, and they left him.