There was a lover's silence between them, which she broke at length by saying:
“Don't you think it would have been much nicer if we could have had one another on trial—say for six months?” >
“So that you could all the time be thinking whether you should repent of your bargain? Oh, dear, no!”
“Ah! you say that; but would it not have been better, if we grew to hate each other, to be able to shake hands and say good-bye? For we may quarrel dreadfully, you know.”
He answered her with tender assurances, laughed at her fears.
“We shall never quarrel if you are a good little girl and do as you are told,” he said.
Clytie laughed, seeing only jesting in the remark.
“And we shall never quarrel if you let me go where I like and do what I like and say what I like.”
“But you will always want to go and do and say as I like, darling,” said Thornton. “So we shall never quarrel.”
“Then you will never want me to be severely respectable?” asked Clytie, with a touch of insistence.