He is just the man to forbid
her on the spot to receive any more presents, and to sacrifice her
comfort to his own pride. But what she has said is quite enough to
bring out a very angry answer, which she expecting, nips in the bud
by--
"For goodness' sake, don't speak so loud; I don't want the servants to
hear."
"I am not speaking loud"--(he has not yet opened his lips). "That is
your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while you are driving
one mad. How dare you taunt me with being a pensioner on your
brother's bounty? I'll go up to town again and take lodgings there.
I need not be beholden to any aristocrat of them all. I have my own
station in the real world,--the world of intellect; I have my own
friends; I have made myself a name without his help; and I can live
without his help, he shall find!"
"Which name were you speaking of?" rejoins she looking up at him, with
all her native Irish humour flashing up for a moment in her naughty
eyes. The next minute she would have given her hand not to have said
it; for, with a very terrible word, Elsley springs to his feet and
dashes out of the room.
She hears him catch up his hat and cloak, and hurry out into the rain,
slamming the door behind him. She springs up to call him back, but
he is gone;--and she dashes herself on the floor, and bursts into an
agony of weeping over "young bliss never to return"? Not in the least.
Her principal fear is, lest he should catch cold in the rain.
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