"And you refuse to go with me?" He gazed at her despairingly. "I would rather not," decidedly. [Pg 36] [Pg 36] He looked at the pretty face in some alarm. It had a very resolute air. Would she really carry out her threat of staying behind? He did not know much about American girls, but he had heard that they managed their own affairs rather more than their English sisters. This one looked exceedingly like the heroine of that familiar ballad: "When she will, she will, depend on't, And when she won't, she won't, And there's an end on't." She glanced up and saw him pulling at the ends of his mustache with an injured air, and a dark frown on his brow. "Why do you look so mad? I should think you would be glad I'm not going." "I am vexed. I wasn't aware that I looked mad. In England we put mad people into insane asylums," he replied, rather stiffly. "Thank you. I understand. Old England is giving Young America a rhetorical hint. Why do you look so vexed, then, Captain Lancaster?" "Because there will be no end of a row in Lancaster Park when I go there, because you have not come with me." "Will there, really?" "Yes; and my aunt, Lady Lancaster, who has promised to give me all her money when she dies, will cut me off with a shilling because I have disobeyed her orders and disappointed Mrs. West." The blue-gray eyes opened to their widest extent. "No!" she said. [Pg 37] [Pg 37]
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