"Then why don't you ask him?" she demanded, passionately. "He's your brother."
"Because I want you to tell me the story first."
There was such tenderness in his voice that she grew reassured in spite of her alarm. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say first of all that you know I'm your friend."
"You can't be my friend," she said, suspiciously, "unless you're Claude's friend, too; and Claude wouldn't own to a friend who tried to part us."
"I don't want to part you, Rosie. I want to bring you together."
The assertion was too much for credence. She was thrown back on the hypothesis of trickery. "You?"
"Yes, Rosie. Has Claude never told you that he's more to me than any one in the world, except—" He paused; he panted; he tried to keep it back, but it forced itself out in spite of his efforts—"except you." Once having said it, he repeated it: "Except you, Rosie; except—you."
Though he was still leaning toward her across the desk, his head sank. There was silence between them. It was long before Rosie, the light in her eyes concentrated to two brilliant, penetrating points, crept forward from the sheltering mass of foliage. She could hardly speak above a whisper.
"Except—who?"