The Dugdale Millions — page 276: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

266 THE DUGDALE MILLIONS. you have seen nothing in my conduct justifying you in the belief that I would listen to anything of this kind. I have accepted you as the guest of our neigh- bor, and had begun to treat you as afriend. I donot know why you should seek to deliberately affront me.’’ “It is no affront for a man to say to the woman he loves, that he does so love her,’’ returned Merri- mount. ‘‘The woman may not return that love, but whether she accepts it or not she cannot say there is an affront in the telling.’’ “It is an affront,’’ replied Wallis hotly, ‘‘when the man, coming with the avowed intention of marrying another girl, thinks he can, while waiting for the fav- orable issue of one suit, induce the friend of that girl to listen to him when she is not by.”’ The young Englishman was amazed. Drawing himself up coldly, he said sternly: ‘‘You mystify me. You have made acharge which you must explain.”’ Wallis was not to be awed by his manner. She re- plied to him with even more indignation: ‘“You shall have the explanation, and my opinion as well. You came to this country with the proposition to Mr. Hetlow to marry his daughter, provided she was indeed the heir to the Dugdale estate. And you have been waiting before making your suit to Bessie, to learn whether or not Harold Pierson was the heir, or whether Bessie would not in the end inherit those millions, And if you desire it, you may have my opinion of the cold-hearted calculation of such a course. Even in practical America, where we are all tradesmen, we stop in our pursuit of dollars to infuse a little warmth and a little love-making into our mar- riage. But i don’t wamt to eriticise you, yet 1edo want you to understand that while you are thus wait- ing for one affair to end, you cannot amuse yourself with me.”’ As Wallis talked she grew more angry, because she saw the expression of wonder and amazement chased Comiclbook<s C@ 3