"It is that after paying most marked attention to his daughter, I have suddenly ceased to follow up my suit, and declared that I meant nothing by it."
"Well," repeated he. "Surely no one knows better than you that there was no foundation for this."
"At all events," replied he, with some irritation of manner, "you could n't believe it."
"I declare I don't know," said she, hesitatingly, for the spirit of drollery had got the better even of the deep interest of the moment,--"I declare I don't know, Mr. Maitland. There is a charm in the manner of an unsophisticated country girl which men of the world are often the very first to acknowledge."
"Charming unsophistication!" muttered he, half aloud.
"At all events, Mr. Maitland, it is no reason that because you don't admire a young lady, you are to shoot her papa."
"How delightfully illogical you are!" said he; and, strangely enough, there was an honest admiration in the way he said it.
"I don't want to convince, sir; I want to be obeyed. What I insist upon is, that this matter shall end here. Do you mind, Mr. Maitland, that it end here?"
"Do you mean to say that with all your tact and cleverness, you cannot find a means of showing that you have been misapprehended, that you are deeply mortified at being misunderstood, that by an expression of great humility--Do you know how to be humble?"
"I can be abject," said he, with a peculiar smile.
"I should really like to see you abject!" said she, laughingly.
"Do so then," cried he, dropping on his knee before her, while he still held her hand, but with a very different tone of voice,--a voice now tremulous with earnest feeling,--continued: "There can be no humility deeper than that with which I ask your forgiveness for one word I spoke to you this evening. If you but knew all the misery it has caused me!"
"Mr. Maitland, this mockery is a just rebuke for my presence here. If I had not stooped to such a step, you would never have dared this."
"It is no mockery to say what my heart is full of, and what you will not deny you have read there. No, Alice, you may reject my love; you cannot pretend to ignore it."
Though she started as he called her Alice, she said nothing, but only withdrew her hand. At last she said: "I don't think this is very generous of you. I came to ask a great favor at your hands, and you would place me in a position not to accept it."