"I will speak--I will be heard! This is the last chance I shall have, and I will avail myself of it. You have wrecked my life and destroyed all my hopes, and yet you think that I am to make no protest against all that you have done! All the time that I was away I was wearing you in my heart, checking off with delight the death of each day which brought nearer the hour of my return to you; and now I have returned to find you sneer at those relations between us which made me so happy, and bidding me be practical, rational; bidding me, in point of fact, though not in words, abjure all my love and give you up contentedly, see you go to someone else. It is too hard, it is too hard, Daisy! You cannot force this upon me."
He seized her hand and looked imploringly into her eyes.
The girl made no attempt to withdraw her hand, it remained passively within his; but his passionate manner met no response in her glance, and the tones of her voice were calm and unbroken as she said:
"I see now, more than ever, how right I was in my determination. I accused you of being childish, and you have proved yourself so, far more thoroughly than I had anticipated. Seeing the chance of your toy being taken away from you, you consent to do what before you would never have thought of, in order to secure it. You scold, and abuse, and beg, and implore in the same breath: almost in the same sentence you declare your love for me and insult me; a continuance of such a state of things would be impossible. We had better shake hands and part."
During this speech she had withdrawn her hand, but at the close she offered it to him again.
Paul Derinzy, however, drew himself up; for an instant he seemed as though about to speak to her, but it was evident he doubted his power of self-command, his eyes filled with tears, and his under-lip trembled visibly. Then with a strong effort he recovered himself, took off his hat, and making a formal bow, hurried away.
"It would never have done," said Daisy, looking after him. Then, as she started on her homeward walk, she said, "It would have been neither one thing nor the other; a kind of genteel poverty. Unrecognised by his relations, he would soon have sickened of that kind of life, and I should have been left to my own devices, to mope and pine at home or amuse myself abroad; in either case, a very undesirable mode of life. My vanity Paul talked about, that could not live without another admirer! Poor fellow, he wasn't right there. It wasn't vanity; it was a craving for luxury and position that first led me to listen to this man. I have to give him my answer by the end of the week. I don't think there is much doubt as to what it will be."