; and I, you think, want a fresh
girl, like myself. Do you mean to insult us both, Lady Markland? Yes,
strike! Order me away from you; but don't mock me! don't mock me!" Then
out of scorn and superiority he sank again into the suppliant. "I will
be tame, if you like; anything that you like. Only don't send me away!"

She drew her hand away from him, at last, and sank into her chair, with
her heart in such a commotion, that she scarcely heard what he was
saying for the loud beating in her ears. Then she made a stand again,
having been, as it were, beaten from the first parallels; carried away
by that fiery charge. She recovered herself a little; controlled the
hurrying pulses; called back her strength. She said with a trembling
voice, "Oh, let us be calm, if we can! Think a little of my position,
and yours. Oh, Theo! think, besides, what I have said, that I am old.
How can I bid you go, I who owe to you--you will not let me say it, but
I feel it in my heart--so much, so much, of the comfort of my life! I
tell you again, you should have said what you have been saying to a girl
who would have put her hand in yours and that would have been all----"
He put out his hand to take hers once more, but this time she refused
him.

"Sit there and let us talk. If I had been that girl!--but I am not, I
never can be. I am a woman who have had to act for myself. I am Geoff's
mother. I must think of him and what has to be done for him. How can you
say I mock you? We are two reasonable beings. We must think; we cannot
be carried away by--by--by fancy, by what you call----"

Her voice broke, she could not go on, with the hurrying of her blood,
the scrutiny of his looks, the passion in him which infected her. She
waved her hand to him to sit down, to be calm, to listen, but she had
no voice to speak.

"I am not reasonable," he replied, "no, don't think it; there is no
reason in me. Afterwards, I will hear all there is to say. You shall
make conditions, explanations, anything you please. Now is not the time
for it. Tell me, am I to go or stay?" He was hoarse, while she was dumb.
With both the question had gone far beyond the bounds of that reason to
which she had appealed. "That is the only thing," he repeated. "Tell me:
am I to go or stay?"

Looking forward to this, it had seemed that there was so much to be
said: on his side all the eloquence of passion; on hers the specious
arguments of a woman who thinks she may still be able to wit