"Pity you?" she repeated contemptuously. "Is that
all you have to say to me after hurting my arm? What a bear you are!"
She shrugged her shoulders and put her hands coquettishly into the
pockets of her apron. That was how she pitied him! His face turned paler
and paler--he writhed under it.
"For God's sake, don't turn everything I say to you into ridicule!" he
cried. "You know I love you with all my heart and soul. Again and again
I have asked you to be my wife--and you laugh at me as if it was a joke.
I haven't deserved to be treated in that cruel way. It maddens me--I
can't endure it!"
Isabel looked down on the floor, and followed the lines in the pattern
of the carpet with the end of her smart little shoe. She could hardly
have been further away from really understanding Moody if he had spoken
in Hebrew. She was partly startled, partly puzzled, by the strong
emotions which she had unconsciously called into being. "Oh dear
me!" she said, "why can't you talk of something else? Why can't we be
friends? Excuse me for mentioning it," she went on, looking up at him
with a saucy smile, "you are old enough to be my father."
Moody's head sank on his breast. "I own it," he answered humbly. "But
there is something to be said for me. Men as old as I am have made good
husbands before now. I would devote my whole life to make you happy.
There isn't a wish you could form which I wouldn't be proud to obey. You
must not reckon me by years. My youth has not been wasted in a profligate
life; I can be truer to you and fonder of you than many a younger man.
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