She shook her head. "Not when the girl is engaged."
She looked at him with a sad droop at the corners of her lips. He sat silent—waiting.
"Listen!" She spoke wearily, rising and leaning against the rough bole of the tree at her back, with both hands tightly clasped behind her. "Listen and don't interrupt, because it's hard, and I want to finish it." Her words came slowly with labored calm, almost as if she were reciting memorized lines. "It sounds simple from your point of view. It is simple from mine, but desperately hard. Love is not the only thing. To some of us there is something else that must come first. I am engaged, and I shall marry the man to whom I am engaged. Not because I want to, but because—" her chin went up with the determination that was in her—"because I must."
"What kind of man will ask you to keep a promise that your heart repudiates?" he hotly demanded.
"He knew that I loved you before you knew it," she answered; "that I would always love you—that I would never love him. Besides, he must do it. After all, it's fortunate that he wants to." She tried to laugh.
"Is his name Pagratide?" The man mechanically drew his handkerchief from his cuff, and wiped beads of cold moisture from his forehead.
The girl shook her head. "No, his name is not Pagratide."
He took a step nearer, but she raised a hand to wave him back, and he bowed his submission.
"You love me—you are certain of that?" he whispered.
"Do you doubt it?"