Hilda could not hold out against that appeal. "No, silly, he hasn't. He isn't that sort…. It's too bad."
"Yes—it's too bad," said Ruth, but it was not sympathy that put the tiny thrill into her voice.
"He's just a boy…. He can't go on all his life loving a girl that doesn't want him. Some day he's going to fall in love again. It's natural he should."
"Has he—Do you think—"
"No, I haven't seen any signs of it yet…. And I'd be jealous if he did. I think I could manage to fall in love with him myself if—"
"—he wasn't tied to me," interrupted Ruth, with a little whimper. "I—I wish he knew—about Mr. Dulac…. He wouldn't think so—hard of me, maybe… if he knew I didn't—never did—love Mr. Dulac…."
"The only thing that would make any difference to him would be to know that you loved him," said Hilda.
Ruth had no answer, but she was saying to herself, with a sort of secret surprise: "If I loved him…. If I loved him…." Presently she spoke aloud: "You won't be angry with me, Hilda?… You won't misunderstand, but—but won't you please—go away?… Please…. I—I don't want to see anybody. I want to be alone."
"Well, of all things!" said Hilda. But she was not offended. Her resemblance to her father was very faint indeed, at that moment. She looked more like her mother, softer, more motherly. She put on her hat and went away quietly. "Poor Bonbright!" she was thinking. Then: "It's come to her…. She's got a hint of it. It will come now with a rush…."
Ruth sat in her chair without movement. "If I loved him…" she said, aloud, and then repeated it, "… loved him…." She was questioning herself now, asking herself the meaning of things, of why she had been lonely, of why she had sat in her window peering down into the street—and she found the answer. As Hilda had said in her thoughts, it was coming with a rush…. She was frightened by it, dared not admit it…. She dared not admit that the biggest, weightiest of her woes was that she no longer had Bonbright with her; that she was lonesome for him; that her heart had been crying out for him; that she loved him! She dared not admit that. It would be too bitter, too ironically bitter…. If she loved him now she had loved him then! Was her life to be filled with such ironies—? Was she forever to eat of Dead Sea fruit?