He stopped as an indignant wave of color flamed in Elizabeth's cheeks. "How can you speak of Amanda—like that?" she broke out passionately, "when you loved her too, or told her so at least, when you said the same things no doubt to her that you are saying now to me?"
A light broke in upon Paul. In his relief he laughed out loud. "Amanda," he said. "Amanda! So she has been talking to you? And you believed all the nonsense she told you? And that is why you acted so strangely. I thought it was something serious!" And he laughed again in sheer light-heartedness. So all this had been only jealous pique, after all.
The gloom on Elizabeth's face did not lighten. "You seem to find the idea amusing," she said, coldly. "I do not."
"Because you don't understand how absurd it is. I never made love to Amanda—if she made love to me"—Paul stopped, warned by a curious stiffening in Elizabeth's attitude that he was on dangerous ground. She was not like other girls whom he had known—he had noticed this before; she required special treatment. "My dear child," he said, in a calm, argumentative tone "really you are a little hard on me. A man can't measure every word he says to a girl. I may have paid Amanda a few compliments, flirted with her a little, if you insist upon it, but—that's not a crime, is it? And I never gave her a thought, I hardly remembered her existence, after I had once—seen you." There was unmistakable sincerity in his voice. "Look at me, Elizabeth," he went on anxiously, "look at me, and tell me that you believe me."
Elizabeth raised her troubled eyes to his. "I—I don't know," she said, slowly. She did believe him—to some extent, at least. But what he told her did not alter the fact that it was she who had taken him away from Amanda, that, but for her, he might have been her cousin's admirer still. And that, after all, had been the substance of Amanda's accusation.
"Tell me the truth," she said, suddenly "if I had not come in that day—if you had never seen me, would you—would you have married Amanda?" She fixed her eager eyes upon his face, and waited breathless for his answer. He gave it with a light laugh.
"Marry Amanda!" he declared, "well, hardly! Such an idea never entered my head."
"Then," said Elizabeth, slowly "you deceived her."
He shrugged his shoulders. "She deceived herself, I think," he said. "It's not my fault if she—imagined things. Why should I marry a girl like that? She's not pretty, she's stupid, ignorant. Bah, don't talk to me of Amanda." He disposed of the matter with a wave of the hand and another light laugh. Elizabeth felt a sudden conviction of the absurdity of her own behavior. The painful, scorching flush in her cheeks was beginning to cool; the burning, angry shame in her heart was dying away. The remembrance of Amanda's words grew fainter; Paul's handsome face, his air of triumphant health and life, were again in the ascendent.
He saw the yielding in her eyes and brought out his most effective argument. He took boldly the seat beside her on the log and though she shrank away, it was not, he thought, entirely with aversion. "My darling," he said, "don't let trifles come between us. I love you, you love me; isn't that enough? Elizabeth, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. Elizabeth, dearest" ... He put out his arm and drew her towards him. She still shrank away, fascinated yet trembling, frightened at this new delight, this thrill of pleasure in his touch.