Adela gathered herself up, and spoke with resolution. "I don't know if you are right," she said, "but any way, Mr. Lance, if I _am_ a kinswoman and a cousin, do you think Miss Jessie will want to have me for one?"
The best that Lance could do was to parry this direct thrust. "If you are so," he answered, "what difference can her wish make?"
"I will tell you, easy enough," Adela retorted, proudly. "It is just that I won't have anything to do with people who don't want me for one of them. If I had ever supposed that coming up here to school would make it seem as if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have come. Oh, I didn't know all this when I came! No, no! And I'm sorry I did it. I tried to be grateful to you, Mr. Lance, and I do thank you for your good meaning; but I'm sorry I came."
"Adela," he said, rather coldly, "I can't let you talk in this way. You are proud and angry, and don't know what you're saying. Remember that, whatever happens, I stand by you."
"I don't want any one to stand by me," she returned. "I am all alone, and I will stay so. Suppose you had never come here, Mr. Lance; who would have guessed that I had anything to do with that old English family? I could not have guessed it myself, even. I know you've tried to help me, and now you want to make something different of me from what I always was before. But I'm going back to marry Dennie, and the best thing you can do is to leave me where you found me, and forget all about me. I shall just be Dennie's wife; that's all. I don't ask to be anything else."
It may seem to you unreal that Lance should have been so much exercised regarding Adela's happiness and her future, especially since he was bound to Jessie Floyd by the most sacred promises. Unreal it is, I grant, to people who live by the tinkle of the horse-car, the tick of the clock, and the reading of the newspaper. But this individual, impracticable man--so like many other men who, in dissimilar circumstances, conceive themselves to be prodigiously practical--was bent upon an idea. And he was determined to carry out his idea. He cared more for his theory than he did for himself or for any one besides. It was his ambition to be impartial--to secure the recognition of all rights which he thought were in need of vindication. And so far did he carry that desire, that he was really somewhat bewildered by it; in consequence whereof he held himself ready, at this especial moment, to sacrifice one great obligation to a lesser obligation.