“Of course.”
“But I had a special reason for being glad.”
“Indeed?”
“I was desperately afraid, before he told me the truth, that he had other views—views that might have proved fatal to my dearest hopes.”
Gertrude frowned at him, and the frown roused him to brave her. He lost his self-command, already shaken by her strange behavior. “You know that I love you, Miss Lindsay,” he said. “It may not be a perfect love, but, humanly speaking, it is a true one. I almost told you so that day when we were in the billiard room together; and I did a very dishonorable thing the same evening. When you were speaking to Trefusis in the avenue I was close to you, and I listened.”
“Then you heard him,” cried Gertrude vehemently. “You heard him swear that he was in earnest.”
“Yes,” said Erskine, trembling, “and I thought he meant in earnest in loving you. You can hardly blame me for that: I was in love myself; and love is blind and jealous. I never hoped again until he told me that he was to be married to Miss Wylie. May I speak to you, now that I know I was mistaken, or that you have changed your mind?”
“Or that he has changed his mind,” said Gertrude scornfully.
Erskine, with a new anxiety for her sake, checked himself. Her dignity was dear to him, and he saw that her disappointment had made her reckless of it. “Do not say anything to me now, Miss Lindsay, lest—”
“What have I said? What have I to say?”