His face fell ludicrously, and his thick black brows drew together in a very ominous fashion. But he still could not believe that she meant it. “I do not think you understand,” he said, “that the house is ready, and the furniture and servants, and there is nothing to prevent you stepping into it all whenever you please. I will take you away from this,” he continued, darting a scornful glance round the stiff chilly room—“I do not suppose that ten people enter this room in the twelvemonth—and I will show you something like life. It is an offer not many would make you. Come, Kate, do not be a little fool! You are not going to say No, so say Yes at once. And don’t let us shilly-shally!”
He had put out his hand as he spoke and captured hers. But she snatched it from him again almost roughly, and stepped back. The right man might have used the words the doctor used, and might have scolded her with impunity, but not the wrong one. Her face, perplexed and troubled a moment before, grew decided enough now. “I am going to say No, nevertheless, Dr. Gregg,” she replied firmly. “I thought I had already said it. I will be as plain as you have been. I do not like you as a wife should like her husband, nor otherwise than as a friend.”
“A friend!” he exclaimed. He gasped as a man does who has been plunged suddenly into cold water. His face was red with anger, and his little black eyes glared at her banefully. “Oh, bother your friendship!” he added violently. “I did not ask you for that!”
“I have nothing else to give you,” she replied coldly.
He gasped again. Refused by the Bonamy girl! He had never thought of this. He was beside himself with astonishment and anger, with disappointment and wounded pride. “You would not have said this a month ago!” he cried at last. “It was a pity I did not ask you then!”
“I should have given you the same answer.”
“Oh, no,” he replied ironically, swinging his hat to and fro. “Oh, no, you would not—not at all, Miss Bonamy. You would have sung to a very different tune if I had whistled to you before this niminy-piminy parson showed his face here! Do not think that I am such a fool as not to see which way the wind is blowing.”
She stood looking at him in silence. But her face was scarlet, and her hand shook with rage.