"Is it for
his sake that you've stayed here?"
"If you will let me go--"
He loosed his grasp and I ostentatiously chafed my wrists. I was in a
fury. I was driven to madness by the thought that John might force a
quarrel upon Ned--the man I had rejected and the man that had rejected me!
"I'll never marry you nor any poor man!" I cried out. "What have you to
offer me? What can you do? Oh, yes, you can come and insult me, and talk
to me of love--Love! The love that would make me a poor man's drudge!"
Again I thrust his ring at him, the opal spitting angry blue and orange
fires. I thought he would have struck at it. Heaven knows what mad
instinct was at the back of his brain. I believe every man's a brute when
the woman he loves defies him. I think his fingers tingled for the Cave
man's club. At any rate, I shrank in terror from his eyes.
But quickly the red light sank in them, and a puzzled look grew there
instead, turning them very soft and pitiful.
"Nelly, I cannot think you serious," he said. "We have always talked of
marriage, and--is it an insult to press you for the day? Heart of me, I've
been so much worried about you! Are you very sure that you have chosen the
wisest part? If you are, I can only leave you to think it over, perhaps
to--"
"Don't preach!"
I flung out at him a torrent of abusive words, resolved that he should
think about me what he chose, so long as it was not the truth.
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