angrily:

"Let me tell you one thing! You shall not marry Rube Rutland!"

"Shall I not?"

Mell laughed--not one of her musical laughs. Now that she was fairly
in for it, she rather enjoyed this fencing match with Jerome.
Hitherto, she had always by stress of circumstances, acted upon the
defensive with him; now she could assert her mastery.

"Shall I not? How will you prevent it?"

"I will open his eyes. I will tell him you do not care a rap for
him."

"You will tell him that? Very well. I will _swear_ to him that I do.
Whom will he believe? _Not you!_"

Her words, her manner, were exasperating, and they were intended to
be exasperating. That cool and systematic self-control which
characterized Jerome, had more than aroused a feeling of rebellious
protest in the girl's impetuous nature. If she could break him up a
little--

"_I say you shall not marry him!_" The words were not loudly spoken,
but they were the utterances of a man much in earnest. "Rather than
see you his wife I would gladly see you dead!"

"Oh, no doubt! But let me tell you, sir, I do not propose to die to
please you! I propose to please myself by becoming the wife of Rube
Rutland!"

This was too much, even for Jerome.

"You heartless, cruel, wicked woman!"

With a single stride he reached her side; he shook his finger rudely
in her face; nay, in a frenzy of mad passion he did worse than
that--he took hold of the wayward creature herself and shook her with
such violence that those heavy coils of hair, upon which she had
expended so much time and pains, loosened and fell about her in a
reckless loveliness beyond the reach of art.

"Woman, do you know what you are doing? Do you know that you are
playing with dangerous implements? toying with men's passions?
dallying with men's souls?"

It is safe to say, Mell had never had such a shaking up, however
frequent the occasions when she had deserved it.

This unconventional usage on the part of Jerome, a man who wore
self-possession and correct manners as an every day coat of mail, not
only surprised Mell, but terrified and subdued her. In undertaking to
"break up" Jerome by stirring up the green-eyed monster, Mell had
neglected to take into account the well-established fact, that no
jealous man stands long upon ceremony. Panting for breath, she awoke
unpleasantly to a full comprehension of a madman's possibilities, and
ignoring all those impassioned inquiries with which he had interlarded