She turned round from the plaque without coming nearer to me.
"I just want to say that the things she told me, the things she pretended to betray, were things I knew more or less already. I'd been coming to the same conclusions for myself, only I hadn't quite reached them.... And then you came back, and everything was so strange ... after I'd been in mourning for you ... and given those prints as a memorial in your name! I wish—" I detected something like a sob—"I wish you could make some allowances for me, Billy."
The minute was a hard one for me, but I stood my ground:
"I make all allowances, Vio; I've no hard feelings whatever."
She advanced toward me by a pace.
"Then will you do this for me? If I can find a way to—to give you your liberty will you—will you marry Mildred Averill, and—and be happy?"
Though my heart was going wild I know my eyes must have been cold as I said:
"I can't promise you that, Vio, for a double reason. First, I'm not in love with her; and then she's not in love with me."
"Oh, but I thought she was. Everybody says so."
"Who's everybody?"