to answer by declining your offer," she said, glancing at the hand and arm which had remained projecting like a pump-handle all this while, with the evident expectation on the part of Thomas, whose whole attitude was quite theatrical, that it was speedily to be seized and clung to.
He now began to look astonished and alarmed, but he immediately rallied.
"Oh! I see how it is!" he said; "I have been rather abrupt, I dare say; but we will become better acquainted. I will call often to see you, and then—why, Miss Van Kleeck—do n't go!"
Getty had now become angry. She left the room and her astonished lover, but paused a moment outside the door, and said, with a very pretty flush on her cheek, and a very bright sparkling in her eye:
"Call as often as you choose, Mr. Vrail, but I shall never see you. You do not seem to understand the plainest words, but I assure you we shall never be better acquainted with each other than we are now. Good evening."
So saying, Getty almost ran out of the outer room, shutting the door after her with a haste which gave it quite the character of a slam, and hurried up to her own apartment.
Tom's panoply of conceit, which was almost invulnerable, and had withstood so much, only now gave way.
"I really believe she means to refuse me," he said, soliloquising. "It is certainly very ridiculous; but perhaps she may come back. I will wait a little."
He did wait some minutes, listening earnestly, and was at length gratified by the sound of approaching steps, which he advanced to meet with great alacrity; but what was his consternation on encountering at the door the wrinkled and vinegary countenance of Dame Becky, whose huge spectacles, as she stood confronting him a moment in silence, glowered upon him like the eyes of the great horned owl.
The lover retreated a step before this apparition.
"Do you want Getty?" she said, at length, in a voice amazingly shrill and sharp.
"I—yes, I should be happy to see her a few minutes if—if you please."
