"That figment is only a cover for flirting."
"But—he is your friend." Her tone was quite resentful, and her temper was rising.
"Was!" with emphasis. "But this shall no longer be a cover for you. You choose between us. If you like him so much better—"
"Roger, he has never uttered a word of love to me." She stopped short in indignation.
"Oh, no! He has some lingering remnant of honor. But you will see how soon he will ask you to marry him when I have given you up."
Given her up! There was a white line about her mouth, and her eyes seemed to hold the depth of midnight.
He had not meant to utter the words, though they had been in his mind for days. At the first inception of such a suspicion he had said he would never give her her liberty and see her married to another man, and then as he had seen her dispensing her smiles to a group of young men and bending her dainty head first to one and then to another, as if what the present speaker was saying was of the utmost moment, a curious revulsion of feeling swept over him. Yes, let Ralston take her, with all her love for the admiration of everybody! Perhaps he did not care for one supreme love.
She was silent from sheer amazement. That any man who was her real lover should talk of such a possibility stung her to the quick.
"Jaqueline, I cannot go on this way," and his voice dropped to a softer key. "I want all the tenderness of the woman I love, and some of the attention, I must confess. If she cares for me I do not see how she can be continually occupied with others. You give me just the fragments. You make engagements, you go out without the least thought that I might have something in view; you have put off our marriage from time to time, and now you must decide. If you love me well enough to marry me—"
"Out of hand!" She gave a scornful little laugh. "I thought it was a girl's prerogative to appoint her own wedding-day. I will not be hurried and ordered about as if I had no mind of my own. I will be no one's slave! I will not be watched and suspected and lectured, and shut up for fear someone will see me!"