“This is the end of the garden,” she said. “Shall we go into the woods for a walk?”
“Dorothy!” Paul began, “pardon me for calling you by your name, but do you know I feel as if any prefix in your case would be irritating, from the fact that you strike me as a girl who is utterly above and beyond such idle conventionalities. One would almost as soon think of saying Miss to a goddess.”
“And may I call you Paul? You will not think me forward if I should do so?” she asked, looking up at him.
“I will think myself more honored than any poor language of mine could describe,” he answered.
“You know I would not want to call you Paul,” she added, “unless I believed in you—unless I thought you were true and honorable in all things.”
Paul winced. Was he not deceiving the girl at that very minute? What could he say?
“Dorothy,” he answered, after a moment's hesitation, “I am not true, nor honorable neither. Perhaps you had better not call me Paul. I do not deserve it.”
She was looking him straight in the face, with her hand upon the gate. He felt the keen, searching quality of her eyes, but was able now to return the look.
“We sometimes judge ourselves harshly,” she continued. “I have myself been often led by an idle temptation into what at first appeared but a trifling wrong, but which looked far more serious later. Had I acted with the greater knowledge, I had committed the greater fault.”
What was she saying? Was she not describing his own position?