Ames sank back into his seat without speaking. Carmen stood for a moment looking about her rich environment; then drew up a chair close to him.
“You haven’t the slightest idea why I have come here, have you?” she said sweetly, looking up into his face.
“I must confess myself quite ignorant of the cause of this unexpected pleasure,” he returned guardedly, bending his head in mock deference, while the great wonder retained possession of him.
“Well,” she went on lightly, “will you believe me when I tell you that I have come here because I love you?”
Aha! A dark suspicion sprang up within him. So this was an attack from a different quarter! Hitt and Haynerd had invoked her feminine wiles, eh?
Nonsense! With one blow the unfamiliar sentiment which had been shedding its influence upon him that morning laid the ugly suspicion dead at his feet. A single glance into that sweet face turned so lovingly up to his brought his own deep curse upon himself for his hellish thought.
“You know,” she bubbled, with a return of her wonted airy gaiety, “I just had to run the gauntlet through guards and clerks and office boys to get here. Aren’t you glad I didn’t send in my card? For then you would have refused to see me, wouldn’t you?”
“I would not!” he replied harshly. Then he repented his tone. “If I had known you were out there,” he said more gently, “I’d have sent out and had you dragged in. I––I have wanted something this morning; and now I am sure it was––”
“Yes,” she interrupted, taking the words out of his mouth, “you wanted me. I knew you would. You see, it’s just absolutely impossible to oppose anybody who loves you. You know, that’s the very method Jesus gave for overcoming our enemies––to 194 love them, just love them to pieces, until we find that we haven’t any enemies at all any more. Isn’t it simple? My! Well, that’s the way I’ve been doing with you––just loving you.”
The man’s brows knotted, and his lips tightened. Was this girl ridiculing him? Or was there aught but the deepest sincerity expressed in the face from which he could not take his eyes? Impossible! And yet, did ever human being talk so strangely, so weirdly, as she?