"Oh, that I might tease you with it again!" she laughed.
He took the absurd trinket in his hand.
"It is pretty badly dilapidated," he observed.
"Yes," she said demurely. "I crushed it in the carriage on the way home from the ball. I—I crumpled it up in my hand."
"Why?"
"You keep saying 'why' over and over to me, Mr. Wynne, as if I were on the witness-stand."
"Why?" he persisted.
He had forgotten all the doubts which had beset and hindered him, the scruples he had had about wooing, and the fears that she did not love him. He was conscious only that she was there before him and that he loved her; that her downcast looks seemed to encourage him, so that it was impossible to rest until he knew what was really in her mind. The unspoken message which he had somehow intangibly received from her made him forget everything else. He loved her; he loved her, and a wild hope was beating in his heart and seething in his brain. He could not turn back now; he must know. He saw her grow paler as he looked at her, standing so close that his face was bent down almost over her bent head. He felt that her secret, nay, the crown of life itself, was within his grasp if he did not fail now.
"Why?" he asked still again, hardly conscious that he said it, and yet determined that he would win an answer at whatever cost.
She raised her face slowly, shyly; her eyes were shining.