“Remember, Jo is only a boy—younger than you in all but years.”
“Only a boy, it is true, but with the faith and love of a man.”
He started from his chair and came up close to her.
“Answer me,” he said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Do you love Jo Gary?”
A sort of paralysis seemed to grip her, and she felt helpless to move her eyes from his. Her lips were slightly parted and he could feel the pull of her nerves. For a moment she looked like a startled deer, quivering at the approach of man, with no place to run.
Then she recovered.
“Ask Jo,” she said defiantly, and sped from the room.
“Jo didn’t tell me how much he had confided in Kurt,” she thought. “What a wee world it is! I can’t see how, with all the shuffling billions of people, the same two, once parted, should ever meet. I believe I was wrong about Kurt. For a moment I was almost afraid of him.”
Kurt gazed into the fire, his gray eyes alert and a soft smile on his lips. He had not been misled. He had clearly read an answer in the young eyes looking into his own.
“She doesn’t love Jo,” he thought, and the knowledge was quickly darkened by the remembrance of what it would mean to the boy-lover.