Her patient words and gentle demeanor were to no avail. She might just as well have flaunted her more illustrious lineage and social standing in his face for all the relief her well-intentioned denial had provided him. Malcolm's hand finally dropped away from his tight grasp on her shoulder, but it was only to ball it up into a fist at his side. He jerked his face away from her, his expression agitated and upset, glaring at the fireplace as if it were it, and not the girl beside him, who had hurt him.
"I see how it is," he said hotly, working himself up to a fever pitch. "I'm not Malfoy or Nott, is that it? You just want someone rich and important so you can laze about for the rest of your life being useless?" His voice was quieter now after his previous explosion, but no less angry and bitter, he fairly hissed the word 'useless.'