Stella moved slightly at the familiar name.
"There are times when a man loses self-control, when he flings prudence to the winds, or rather, lets it slip from him. This is one of those moments, Stella—Miss Etheridge; I feel that I must speak, let it cost me what it may."
Still silent, she stood as if turned to stone. He put his hand to his brow—his white, thin hand, with its carefully trimmed nails—and wiped away the perspiration that stood in big beads.
"Miss Etheridge, I think you can guess what it is I want to say, and I hope that you will not think any the less of me because of my inability to say it as it should be said, as I would have it said. Stella, if you look back, if you will recall the times since first we met, you cannot fail to know my meaning."
She turned her face toward him for a moment, and shook her head.
"You mean that I have no right to think so. Do you think that you, a woman, have not seen what every woman sees so quickly when it is the case—that I have learned to love you!"
The word was out at last, and as it left him he trembled.
Stella did not start, but her face went paler than before, and she shrank slightly.
"Yes," he went on, "I have learned to love you. I think I loved you the first evening we met; I was not sure then, and—I will tell you the whole truth, I have sworn to myself that I would do it—I tried to fight against it. I am not a man easily given to love; no, I am a man of the world—one who has to make his way in the world, one who has an ambition; and I tried to put you from my thoughts—I tried hard, but I failed."
He paused, and eyed her watchfully. Her face was like a mask of stone.