"Why, Peter," she exclaimed, and turned great, serious eyes upon him, "I never knew before that you read Browning."
Her laugh had half sobered him. But evidently he had not grasped her meaning, for he frowned and murmured puzzled: "Browning?"
"Why, yes," she said gaily. "I forget exactly how it goes, but something like this: 'I will hold your hand, just as long as all may. Or so very little longer.'"
He made no sign that her flippancy had hurt him; he sat down beside her, his hands clasped between his knees.
"Why should you hate me so, Rosemary?" he asked quietly.
"Hate you, my dear Peter?" she exclaimed. "Whatever put that quaint notion into your head? The heat must have been too much for you this afternoon. You never will wear a cap."
"I know that I am beneath contempt, of course," he insisted, "but when one despises a poor creature like me, it seems wanton cruelty just to kick it."
"I did not mean to hurt you, Peter," Rosemary rejoined more gently, "but when you are trying to talk nonsense, I must in self-defence bring you back to sanity."
"Nonsense? Would to God I could talk nonsense, act nonsense, live nonsense. Would to God my poor brain did refuse to take in the fact that you have promised to become Jasper's wife, and that I, like a fool, have lost you for ever."
"Lost me, Peter?" she retorted, with just the faintest tremor of bitterness in her voice. "I don't think you ever sought me very seriously, did you?"