Brother again! Blow after blow; let them fall now, one upon another. I had feared this, yet would not expect it. But I suppose I must unwittingly have been born a brother.
"That's right," said I. "Go on—little sister." The words were getting quite familiar now.
"He says that he has never stopped loving me—dreadfully—desperately—from the very first. But I was so sure it was only a fancy, and—and that when I was so bad to him, and Phyllis so kind, he began to care for her instead. Just now, when you said I must pretend to be engaged to him, I was thinking how horrid it would be for him to feel, 'Oh, if it were only Phyllis!' Didn't you suppose he was in love with Phyllis?"
"Never," I heard myself assuring her; "never."
"I'm so glad. You're sure, then, that he knows his own mind, that he isn't asking me to go on being really engaged to him just to save my feelings after that scene with Sir Alec MacNairne?"
"I'm dead sure," I said.
"You perfect dear! I do like you. Oh, wasn't it too funny—I can say it, now we're brother and sister—he thought I might be in love with you."
"Owl!" I remarked.
"And all the time I was so horribly afraid he might suspect I cared that I would hardly speak a word to him. Besides, I didn't suppose he could be bothered listening to anything I might have to say. And I felt quite sorry for him when Phyllis was engaged to Robert. Dear Phil, I've been horrid to her, too. You see, she was trying to persuade herself to take Rudolph without loving him, and I just hated her for it."
"Oh, that was what you meant, then!" I exclaimed.