"
"The young donkey! To annoy you so!"
"_Annoy_ me! Surely you don't think _Thomas_ was thinking of the money?"
"Good Lord, no, it never entered his head! Neither did it enter his head
what an unpardonable piece of presumption it was on his part to ask you
to marry him. A great, ignorant, overgrown, farmer boy!"
"You are mistaken," said Sylvia quietly; "I do not love Thomas, but if I
did, the answer would have had to be 'no' just the same. The presumption
would be all on my part, if I allowed any clean, wholesome, honest boy,
in a moment of passion, to throw away his life on a woman like me. Thomas
must marry a girl, as fresh as he is himself--not a woman with a past
like mine behind her."
For nearly a year Austin had exercised a good deal of self-control for a
man little trained in that valuable quality. At Sylvia's speech it gave
way suddenly, and without warning. Entirely forgetting his resolution
never to touch her, he leaned forward, seizing her arm, and speaking
vehemently.
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