His words came with a rush. “This means too much to me; it’s all or nothing. If it means nothing to you, say so. I’m not playing. I can go away now—there’s time; soon you’ll have become too much a part of me.—When you’ve forced me up to the point of being frank, you say, ’Let’s talk of something else.’ Can’t you understand that you’re becoming my religion—that I do everything thinking, ’This’ll make her happy,’ and dream about you day and night?”
She sat beside him motionless. He had expected her either to surrender or to show resentment. She made no attempt to alter her position; their shoulders were still touching.
At last, when he had come to the breaking-point, she lifted her grave gray eyes. “You’re foolish,” she said quietly. “Of course I’m glad of you. But you’ll spoil everything by being in such a hurry. You don’t know what kind of a girl I am. We’ve not been together twenty-four hours all told, and yet that’s been long enough to teach me that we’re totally unlike. I’m temperamental—-one of those girls who alter with the fashions. You’re one of the people who never change. You’re the same nice boy I used to play with, and fancy that—oh, that on some far-off day I might marry. You’re nearly famous, so mother says. I want to be famous, too; but I’m younger than you—I’ve not had time. But I know much more about the world. Don’t be hurt when I say it: your ideas about love and your generosity, and everything you do, make me feel that you’re such a child. I like you for it,” she added quickly.
Then, speaking in a puzzled way: “You make things difficult. I shouldn’t be doing right by encouraging you, and——” She faltered over her words. The innocent kindness shone in her eyes. “And I can’t bear to send you away. I don’t know what to do. I’d have encouraged you if I’d written to thank you for those flowers, shouldn’t I? But they made me just as happy as—— I was a regular baby over them. Every morning they lay there on my plate and I wore them the whole day. Fluffy used to chaff me. You don’t like Fluffy.” She winked at him provokingly. “Oh, no, you don’t! You think actresses improper persons. You needn’t deny it.—And I do so want to be an actress, so as to prove to my father and Mrs. Sheerug, and all the lot of them, that I’m worth knowing. Can’t you understand? After I’m great, I might be content to chuck the stage and become only a simple good little wife.”
“Wouldn’t it be as fine,” he whispered, “to share some one else’s success?”
She gazed at him wisely. “Philanthropic egotist! You know it wouldn’t. Own up—don’t you know it wouldn’t?”
“For a man it wouldn’t,” he conceded ruefully.
She smiled vaguely. “Then why for a woman? Only love could make it different. You believe in love at first sight. I don’t At least, I’m not sure about it.”
“But you can’t call ours love at first sight.”
“Ours!” She raised her brows. “Yours was. You had your magic cloak ready to pop over me the moment you thought you’d found me. I’m only a lay figure.”