"I'm afraid I didn't deserve it. I wasn't thinking of anybody but myself. It was very good of you."
"Of course you weren't thinking of anybody," Stanford responded, pulling his mustache more furiously than ever; "but I was at the club instead of being in a burning car. I was half crazy at the thought that my future wife"—
"Stop!" Berenice broke in. "You mustn't say such things. I'm not your future wife!"
"Forgive me. I know I haven't any right to say that when you haven't promised; but I can't help thinking of you so, and"—
"Oh, please don't!" she cried.
A wave of humiliation, of repulsion, of terror, swept over her. That this man had thought of her as his wife seemed almost like an inexorable bond. She shrank away from him with an impulse too strong to be controlled.
"But, Berenice, I"—
She sprang up and faced him.
"I have never promised you!" she declared with hurried vehemence. "I never will promise you! I can't marry you. If I've made you think so, I didn't mean to. I didn't know my own mind. I thought—O Mr. Stanford, if I have deceived you, I beg your pardon. I"—
The tears choked and blinded her. She broke off, and put her handkerchief to her eyes; but when she heard him rise and hurry toward her, she went on hastily.