"I!" she said, coloring quickly and vividly. Then after a moment she added, with a tinge of bitterness in her tone, "Such an idea was natural, perhaps, considering your opinion of me. But it was a great mistake."
"So I have learned," he answered. "But when you speak of my opinion of you, may I ask what you conceive it to be?"
"Is it necessary that we should discuss it?" she asked with a touch of her old haughtiness. "It is not of importance—to me."
"I am sure of that," he said, with something of humility. "But, believe me, your opinion of it is of importance to me. Therefore I should very much like to know what you believe that I think of you."
Her straight brows grew closer together. She spoke with the air of one who wishes to end a disagreeable subject. "This seems to me very unnecessary, Mr. Earle; but, since you insist, I suppose that you think me altogether mercenary and ready, if the opportunity had been given me, to marry your cousin for his fortune."
"Thank you," he answered when she ceased speaking. "I am much obliged by your frankness. I feared that you did me just such injustice; and yet, Miss Lynde, how can you? In the first place, do you suppose that I am unaware that you gave his father's fortune intact to my cousin? And in the second place, have I not heard that you refused it when he offered it to you again, with himself? If I had ever fancied you mercenary, could I continue so to mistake you after hearing these things? But indeed I never did think you mercenary, not even in the days when we differed most on the question which finally divided us. I did not think then that you desired wealth for itself, or that you would have done anything unworthy to gain it; but I thought you exaggerated its value for the sake of the things it could purchase, and I believed then (what I know now) that you did injustice to the nobleness of your own nature in setting before yourself worldly prosperity as your ideal of happiness."
She shook her head a little sadly. "The less said of the nobleness of my nature the better," she answered; "but I soon found that the ideal was a very poor one, and one which could not satisfy me. I am glad your cousin came to claim that fortune, which might else have weighed me down with its responsibility to the end."
"And do you forgive me," he said, leaning toward her and lowering his voice, "for having refused that fortune?"
"Does it matter," she answered, somewhat nervously, "whether I forgive you or not? It would have ended in the same way. You, too, would have had to give it up when your cousin appeared."
"But, putting that aside, can you not now realize a little better my motives, and forgive whatever seemed harsh or dictatorial in my conduct?"