She did not add that she had not worn them because they were the gift of Colonel Wallifarro and seemed to her an emblem of bondage.
All that she would tell him in a few minutes, but first she had an awkward question to ask which had hung over her all evening as the threat of bedtime punishment hangs over a child. Now she meant to dispose of that quickly and categorically and have it done with. She felt shamed, as his frank eyes met hers, to broach an inquiry that seemed so nearly an insult to his allegiance. But she stood pledged and she had planned the matter in just one fashion. There would be the question and the negative reply, then the ghost would be laid.
That there could be any other answer than "No," however modified or justified by circumstance, had not entered into her premises of thought as conceivable. The general who, no matter how flawless his plan-in-chief, has arranged no alternative strategy, is a commander doomed. Anne had admitted in advance no substitute for absolute denial.
Now she turned and spoke gently:
"Before we talk of anything else, dear, there's a question I must ask you, and you must answer it in one word—yes, or no. You'll want to say more, and afterwards you may—but not at first." She paused, and a note of apology crept into the voice that went on again: "I feel disloyal even to ask it, but it's a thing I'm pledged to do, and I'll explain the reason afterwards."
Boone smiled with the confidence of a man for whom the witness stand holds no terror.
"Ask it, dearest."
"Did you ... ever"—she faltered a moment, then went hurriedly on, as if racing against a failure of resolve—"ask ... any other girl ... to marry you?"
The smile was struck from his face in an instant, leaving his eyes pained and his lips straight and tight, and her gaze, fixed on his, read the swift change of expression and responded with a sudden terror in her own pupils.
"I was never ... in love with any one...!"