"What was Loring to you?" he asked in sharp, imperious tones—tones that made her hurriedly cry,
"No, no; not that, not that. How could you think that of me?"
"What then?" came curt and crisp from him, her reproach falling unheeded.
"Oh, I wish—I wish you could understand just a little! Do you think it's all nothing to me? Do you think I don't mind?"
"I don't know what it is to you," he said doggedly. "I know it's nothing to Loring."
"I don't believe," she went on, "that he's coming because of Adela at all."
And as she spoke, she met his eyes for a moment, and then shrank from them.
"Come, shall we speak plainly?" he asked with evident impatience.
"Ah, you will, I know," she wailed, with a smile and a despairing gesture. She loved and dreaded him for it. "Not too plainly, Willie!"
His mouth relaxed.