Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/76

Rh "He will ask you! You will see."

"If he does, I shall be surprised."

"You will pretend to be. Women always do."

"He has known me as a child," she continued, heedless of his sarcasm. "I shall always be a child, for him."

"He will like that," said Fenton. "He will like a child of twenty."

Nora, for an instant was lost in meditation. "As regards marriage," she said at last, quietly, "I will do what Roger wishes."

Fenton lost patience. "Roger be hanged!" he cried. "You are not his slave. You must choose for yourself and act for yourself. You must obey your own heart. You don't know what you are talking about. One of these days your heart will say its say. Then we shall see what becomes of Roger's wishes! If he wants to make what he pleases of you, he should have taken you younger,—or older! Don't tell me seriously that you can ever love (don't play upon words: love, I mean, in the one sense that means anything!) such a solemn little fop as that! Don't protest, my dear girl; I must have my say. I speak in your own interest; I speak, at any rate, from my own heart. I detest the man. I came here perfectly on the square, and he has treated me as if I were n't fit to touch with tongs. I am poor, I have my way to make, I ain't fashionable; but I'm an honest man, for all that, and as good as he, take me altogether. Why can't he show me a moment's frankness? Why can't he take me by the hand, and say, 'Come, young man, I've got capital, and you 've got brains; let's pull