All at once her face quivered, she put up her hands to hide it. Then she whispered brokenly:
"You would do that for me?"
"It would be nothing ... if you loved me," he answered.
There was silence for a moment or two. Then it broke from him again.
"I couldn't go on acting to you ... lying to you...."
"Oh, I know ... I know...." she answered.
Suddenly he was on his knees beside her. He caught her hands and held them to his breast.
"Can't it ever be different?" he was stammering. "Can't it ever be different? Some time ... after years maybe?... Is there no love in you for me?... None at all?"
But as he knelt there beside her stammering with the ardour of his long suppressed love, it was Loring that Sophy thought of—Loring who had also knelt beside her in desperate appeal. She blanched with the confused, humiliating pain of it.
"Oh, don't you see ... don't you see," she pleaded. "I haven't any love to give.... How could I have?..." She drew away her hands and pressed them to her own breast. "I'm like a dead thing...." she said desperately, "dead ... cold...."