“Tell me,” he urged; “you must have said something of the sort. Even if she exaggerated, she wouldn’t make it all up. What did you tell her, dear?”
The two were alone in the library. The dusk was just beginning,—the lights not yet turned on. Patty, in a great easy chair, sat near the wood fire, which had burned down to a few glowing embers. Van Reypen, restless, had been stalking about the room. Now, he came near to her, and pushing up an ottoman, he sat down by her.
“You must tell me,” he said, in a low, tense voice. “I can’t bear it if you don’t. I won’t ask you anything more,—I’ll go right away, if you say so,—but, Patty, dearest, tell me if you told Aunty Van that you would learn to love me.”
Phil’s dark, handsome face looked into her own. With a feeling as of a tightening round her heart, Patty realised that his eyes were very like his aunt’s, that their impelling gaze would yet make her say yes. And, fascinated, she gazed back, until, coerced, she breathed a low “yes.”
Then, appalled at the look that came to his face she covered her eyes with her hands, whispering, “Go away, Phil. You said you’d go away if I wanted you to, and I do want you to. Please go.”
Van Reypen leaned nearer. “I will go, Little Sweetheart. I can bear to go now. You have made me so happy with that one little word. The rest can wait. Good-bye, you will call me back soon, I know.”
Bending down he dropped a light kiss on the curly golden hair, and went away, happy in the knowledge of Patty’s love, and almost amused at what he thought was her shyness in acknowledging it.
When she heard the street door close, Patty looked up. Her face was white, and she was nervously trembling.
