Now, as Mr. Barry thought, had come the time in which he must assert himself.  “Miss Grey,” he said, “you have probably a long life before you.”

“Long or short, it can make no difference.”

“If I understood you aright, you are one who lives very much to yourself.”

“To myself and my father.”

“He is growing in years.”

“So am I, for the matter of that.  We are all growing in years.”

“Have you looked out for yourself, and thought what manner of home yours will be when he shall have been dead and buried?” He paused, but she remained silent, and assumed a special cast of countenance, as though she might say a word, if he pressed her, which it would be disagreeable for him to hear.  “When he has gone will you not be very solitary without a husband?”

“No doubt I shall.”

“Had you not better accept one when one comes your way who is not, as he tells you, quite unworthy of you?”

“In spite of such worth solitude would be preferable.”

“You certainly have a knack, Miss Grey, of making the most unpalatable assertions.”

“I will make another more unpalatable.  Solitude I could bear,—­and death,—­but not such a marriage.  You force me to tell you the whole truth because half a truth will not suffice.”

“I have endeavored to be at any rate civil to you,” he said.

“And I have endeavored to save you what trouble I could by being straightforward.”  Still he paused, sitting in his chair uneasily, but looking as though he had no intention of going.  “If you will only take me at my word and have done with it!” Still he did not move.  “I suppose there are young ladies who like this kind of thing, but I have become old enough to hate it.  I have had very little experience of it, but it is odious to me.  I can conceive nothing more disagreeable than to have to sit still and hear a gentleman declare that he wants to make me his wife, when I am quite sure that I do not intend to make him my husband.”

“Then, Miss Grey,” he said, rising from his chair suddenly, “I shall bid you adieu.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Barry.”

“Good-bye, Miss Grey.  Farewell!” And so he went.

“Oh, papa, we have had such a scene!” she said, the moment she felt herself alone with her father.

“You have not accepted him?”

“Accepted him!  Oh dear no!  I am sure at this moment he is only thinking how he would cut my throat if he could get hold of me.”

“You must have offended him then very greatly.”

“Oh, mortally!  I said everything I possibly could to offend him.  But then he would have been here still had I not done so.  There was no other way to get rid of him,—­or indeed to make him believe that I was in earnest.”

“I am sorry that you should have been so ungracious.”

“Of course I am ungracious.  But how can you stand bandying compliments with a man when it is your object to make him know the very truth that is in you?  It was your fault, papa.  You ought to have understood how very impossible it is that I should marry Mr. Barry.”