GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

Agatha reddened and placed her palm on the step as if about to spring up. But she checked herself and said: “Stop, Mr. Trefusis. If you talk about that I shall go away. I wonder at you! Have you no taste?’,

“None whatever. And as I was the aggrieved party on that — stay, don’t go. I will never allude to it again. I am growing afraid of you. You used to be afraid of me.”

“Yes; and you used to bully me. You have a habit of bullying women who are weak enough to fear you. You are a great deal cleverer than I, and know much more, I dare say; but I am not in the least afraid of you now.”

“You have no reason to be, and never had any. Henrietta, if she were alive, could testify that it there is a defect in my relations with women, it arises from my excessive amiability. I could not refuse a woman anything she had set her heart upon — except my hand in marriage. As long as your sex are content to stop short of that they can do as they please with me.”

“How cruel! I thought you were nearly engaged to Gertrude.”

“The usual interpretation of a friendship between a man and a woman! I have never thought of such a thing; and I am sure she never has. We are not half so intimate as you and Sir Charles.”

“Oh, Sir Charles is married. And I advise you to get married if you wish to avoid creating misunderstandings by your friendships.”

Trefusis was struck. Instead of answering, he stood, after one startled glance at her, looking intently at the knuckle of his forefinger.

“Do take pity on our poor sex,” said Agatha maliciously. “You are so rich, and so very clever, and really so nice looking that you ought to share yourself with somebody. Gertrude would be only too happy.”

Trefusis grinned and shook his head, slowly but emphatically.

“I suppose I should have no chance,” continued Agatha pathetically.

“I should be delighted, of course,” he replied with simulated confusion, but with a lurking gleam in his eye that might have checked her, had she noticed it.

“Do marry me, Mr. Trefusis,” she pleaded, clasping her hands in a rapture of mischievous raillery. “Pray do.”

“Thank you,” said Trefusis determinedly; “I will.”

“I am very sure you shan’t,” said Agatha, after an incredulous pause, springing up and gathering her skirt as if to run away. “You do not suppose I was in earnest, do you?”

“Undoubtedly I do. I am in earnest.”

Agatha hesitated, uncertain whether he might not be playing with her as she had just been playing with him. “Take care,” she said. “I may change my mind and be in earnest, too; and then how will you feel, Mr. Trefusis?”

“I think, under our altered relations, you had better call me Sidney.”

“I think we had better drop the joke. It was in rather bad taste, and I should not have made it, perhaps.”

“It would be an execrable joke; therefore I have no intention of regarding it as one. You shall be held to your offer, Agatha. Are you in love with me?”

“Not in the least. Not the very smallest bit in the world. I do not know anybody with whom I am less in love or less likely to be in love.”

“Then you must marry me. If you were in love with me, I should run away. My sainted Henrietta adored me, and I proved unworthy of adoration — though I was immensely flattered.”

“Yes; exactly! The way you treated your first wife ought to be sufficient to warn any woman against becoming your second.”

“Any woman who loved me, you mean. But you do not love me, and if I run away you will have the advantage of being rid of me. Our settlements can be drawn so as to secure you half my fortune in such an event.”

“You will never have a chance of running away from me.”

“I shall not want to. I am not so squeamish as I was. No; I do not think I shall run away from you.”

“I do not think so either.”

“Well, when shall we be married?”

“Never,” said Agatha, and fled. But before she had gone a step he caught her.

“Don’t,” she said breathlessly. “Take your arm away. How dare you?”

He released her and shut the door of the conservatory. “Now,” he said, “if you want to run away you will have to run in the open.”

“You are very impertinent. Let me go in immediately.”

“Do you want me to beg you to marry me after you have offered to do it freely?”

“But I was only joking; I don’t care for you,” she said, looking round for an outlet.

“Agatha,” he said, with grim patience, “half an hour ago I had no more intention of marrying you than of making a voyage to the moon. But when you made the suggestion I felt all its force in an instant, and now nothing will satisfy me but your keeping your word. Of all the women I know, you are the only one not quite a fool.”

“I should be a great fool if—”

“If you married me, you were going to say; but I don’t think so. I am the only man, not quite an ass, of your acquaintance. I know my value, and yours. And I loved you long ago, when I had no right to.”

Agatha frowned. “No,” she said. “There is no use in saying anything more about it. It is out of the question.”

“Come, don’t be vindictive. I was more sincere then than you were. But that has nothing to do with the present. You have spent our renewed acquaintance on the defensive against me, retorting upon me, teasing and tempting me. Be generous for once, and say Yes with a good will.”

“Oh, I NEVER tempted you,” cried Agatha. “I did not. It is not true.” He said nothing, but offered his hand. “No; go away; I will not.” He persisted, and she felt her power of resistance suddenly wane. Terrorstricken, she said hastily, “There is not the least use in bothering me; I will tell you nothing to-day.”

“Promise me on your honor that you will say Yes tomorrow, and I will leave you in peace until then.”

“I will not.”

“The deuce take your sex,” he said plaintively.

“You know my mind now, and I have to stand here coquetting because you don’t know your own. If I cared for my comfort I should remain a bachelor.”

“I advise you to do so,” she said, stealing backward towards the door. “You are a very interesting widower. A wife would spoil you. Consider the troubles of domesticity, too.”

“I like troubles. They strengthen — Aha!” (she had snatched at the knob of the door, and he swiftly put his hand on hers and stayed her). “Not yet, if you please. Can you not speak out like a woman — like a man, I mean? You may withhold a bone from Max until he stands on his hind legs to beg for it, but you should not treat me like a dog. Say Yes frankly, and do not keep me begging.”

“What in the world do you want to marry me for?”

“Because I was made to carry a house on my shoulders, and will do so. I want to do the best I can for myself, and I shall never have such a chance again. And I cannot help myself, and don’t know why; that is the plain truth of the matter. You will marry someone some day.” She shook her head. “Yes, you will. Why not marry me?”

Agatha bit her nether lip, looked ruefully at the ground, and, after a long pause, said reluctantly, “Very well. But mind, I think you are acting very foolishly, and if you are disappointed afterwards, you must not blame ME.”

“I take the risk of my bargain,” he said, releasing her hand, and leaning against the door as he took out his pocket diary. “You will have to take the risk of yours, which I hope may not prove the worse of the two. This is the seventeenth of June. What date before the twenty-fourth of July will suit you?”

“You mean the twenty-fourth of July next year, I presume?”

“No; I mean this year. I am going abroad on that date, married or not, to attend a conference at Geneva, and I want you to come with me. I will show you a lot of places and things that you have never seen before. It is your right to name the day, but you have no serious business to provide for, and I have.”