“Sir, I ain’t more fit for you than my poor sun-browned throat be fit for a lady’s jewels. You’ve had a hobby, and you’ve rid it hard, and I was a part of it for awhile. But ’twas only a fancy. Lord! how clear I saw it all when you spoke so scornful-like o’ love! Love may be a ordinary valleyless sort o’ thing like buttercups and daisies, but how them little blossoms do make a glory on a dusty common! It’s the buttercups and daisies as I want, sir; not them cold, white pearls.” “Poor little Annie! I can’t give you what I have not.” “No, sir, that’s just it; the fault ain’t none o’ yours. Don’t think as I blame ye, sir, or cast a word against ye. We are as we are made. But it is goodbye, sir, and goodbye it must be for ever. Don’t ye worry or fret. ’Taint no fault o’ yours. We’re too wide apart, and ’twas folly to think as we could ever be one.” Her voice breaks down, her tears fall; Bertram takes her hands in his and kisses her on the forehead. “Dear little Annie! I feel as if I had sinned against you! and yet God knows I had the best intentions; and if I deceived any one, I deceived myself first of all.” The tramp of heavy steps is heard in the rooms beyond, and Annie’s elder brother, Sam, dashes the door-curtains aside and enters, wildly flourishing a driving-whip. “Yah! Bloated aristocrat! I’ve nabbed ye at last! Shame on ye! Shame on ye, too, Hann!” he yells at the top of his voice. “Out o’ this room, gal, whilst I gi’e your bloomin’ nob the lickin’ he deserves. ’Tis for this we pore workin’-folk toils and moils and starves, to hev our wimmen-kind trod under foot like dirt by blackguard swells! Sister Kate, at ’ome, says to me, ‘Sam, run quick and ye’ll catch ’em together.’ And I meets yer servant in the street, and he says, too, ‘Run, Sam, and ye’ll catch ’em together.’ But I never thought, respectable as our fam’ly is, and so mealy-mouthed as is Sister Hann----” Bertram coldly interposes. “When you have done yelling, my good youth, will you listen to a word of common sense?” “Oh, Sam, are you mad?” cries Annie. “Kate never meant anything of the kind. You know Mr. Bertram has ever treated me as if I was a waxworks under a glass case.” “Take off your hat, put down your whip, apologise to your sister, and listen to me,” says Bertram, with authority. But the youth is in no mood to hear or to obey. He has taken a glass of gin with a fellow-cabby, and his blood is on fire. “I won’t listen to you, nor to nobody. Ye’ll get yer thrashin’ at last, you scoundrel, as preaches to the pore.” He advances on Bertram, whirling his horsewhip, with a broken lash, above his head. Bertram eyes him calmly, remembers old Oxford rows, straightens his arm, and meets him with a scientific blow which sends him backward on the floor.