John said nothing to this, only shrugged his shoulders, screwed up his eyes, and rubbed his nose. In the lion house they walked slowly from cage to cage until they came to a tiger which walked up and down, up and down, up and down, turning his great painted head with intolerable familiarity, and with his whiskers just brushing the brick wall. “They pay for their beauty, poor beasts,” said John, after a pause. “And you know it proves what I’ve been saying. Mankind want to catch anything beautiful and shut it up, and then come in thousands to watch it die by inches. That’s why one hides what one is and lives behind a mask in secret.” “I hate you, John, and all your ideas. I love my fellow creatures--or most of them--and I can’t help it if you are a tiger and not a human being. I’m not mad; I can trust people with every feeling I have got, and I shall never have any feelings that I shouldn’t like to share with everybody. I don’t mind if I am a Christian--it’s better than suffering from persecution mania, and browbeating me because I’m fond of my father and Aunt Eily.” But Miss Lackett did not look very browbeaten as she said this. On the contrary her eyes sparkled, her colour was high and her looks imperious, and she kept tapping the toe of her pointed shoe on the stone floor. Mr. Cromartie was irritated by this tapping, so he said something in a low voice on purpose so that Josephine should not be able to hear it; the only word audible was “browbeating.” She asked him very savagely what he had said. John laughed. “What’s the use of my talking to you at all if you fly into a rage before you have even heard what I have got to say?” he asked her. Josephine turned pale with self-control; she glared at a placid lion with such fury that, after a moment or two, the beast got up and walked into the den behind his cage. “Josephine, please be reasonable. Either you are in love with me or else you are not. If you are in love with me it can’t cost you much to sacrifice other people to me. Since you won’t do that it follows that you are not in love with me, and in that case you only keep me hanging round you because it pleases your vanity. I wish you would choose someone else for that sort of thing. I don’t like it, and any of your father’s old friends would do better than me.” “How dare you talk to me about my father’s old friends?” said Josephine. They were silent. Presently Cromartie said, “For the last time, Josephine, will you marry me, and be damned to your relations?”