“What was it that made you?” she said. “I want you to tell me.”
She went closer to him, her eyes ever brighter and wider with that intensity of wonder. “You've given up—to your father,” she said, slowly, “and then you came to ask me—” She broke off. “Bibbs, do you want me to marry you?”
“Yes,” he said, just audibly.
“No!” she cried. “You do not. Then what made you ask me? What is it that's happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Wait,” she said. “Let me think. It's something that happened since our walk this morning—yes, since you left me at noon. Something happened that—” She stopped abruptly, with a tremulous murmur of amazement and dawning comprehension. She remembered that Sibyl had gone to the New House.
Bibbs swallowed painfully and contrived to say, “I do—I do want you to—marry me, if—if—you could.”
She looked at him, and slowly shook her head. “Bibbs, do you—” Her voice was as unsteady as his—little more than a whisper. “Do you think I'm—in love with you?”
“No,” he said.
Somewhere in the still air of the room there was a whispered word; it did not seem to come from Mary's parted lips, but he was aware of it. “Why?”