Ida drew her arm from his, and regarded him with stony amazement.  For the moment she really thought that either he had been drinking too much spirits at the refreshment-room at the station and that it was an elaborate joke on his part, or that she had lost her senses and was imagining a hideously ridiculous speech, too absurd and grotesque for even Joseph to have uttered.  Then she saw by his face that he was sober and that he had actually proposed to her, and, in a kind of desperation, she laughed.

He had been going to take her arm again, but his hand fell to his side, and he looked at her with a mixture of astonishment and indignation, with such an expression of wounded vanity and resentment, that Ida felt almost forced to laugh again; but she checked the desire, and said, as gently and humbly as she could: 

“I—­I beg your pardon, Joseph.  I thought it was a—­a joke.  I am very sorry.  But though you didn’t mean it as a jest, it is, of course, absurd.  I don’t think you quite know what you were saying; I am quite sure you don’t mean it—­”

“Oh, yes, but I do!” he broke in eagerly, and with a little air of relief.  “I’m in earnest, ’pon my word, I am.  I’m awfully in love with you; and if you’ll say yes, I’ll stand up to the guv’nor and make it all square for you.”

“But I say ‘No,’” said Ida, rather sternly, her lips setting tightly, her eyes flashing in the darkness, which, fortunately for Joseph, hid them from his sight.  “Please do not speak to me in this way again.”

“But look here!” he stammered, his face red, his thick lips twisted in an ugly fashion, “do you know what you’re doing—­saying?”

“Yes,” she said, more sternly than before.  “I think it is you who do not know what you are saying.  You cannot mean to insult me.  I beg your pardon, Joseph.  I do not mean to be angry, to hurt your feelings.  I think you mean to pay me a great honour; and I—­I thank you; but I cannot accept it.  And please take this as my final answer, and never, never, speak to me again in this manner.”

“Do you mean to say—­” he began angrily.

“Not another word, please,” said Ida, and she hurried forward so that they came within hearing of Isabel.

Nothing more was said until they reached Laburnum Villa.  Mrs. Heron was waiting up for them, and was expressing a hope that they had enjoyed themselves—­she had a woollen shawl round her shoulders and spoke in an injured voice and with the expression of a long-suffering martyr—­when she caught sight of Joseph’s angry and sullen face as he flung himself into a chair and thrust his hands in his pockets, and she stopped short and looked from him to Ida, and sniffed suspiciously and aggressively.

“Oh, yes,” said Joseph, with an ugly sneer and a scowl at Ida as she was leaving the room, “we have had a very happy time—­some of us—­a particularly happy time, I don’t think!”

CHAPTER XXX.