"Oh, I did not mean you alone—you personally—but all Southern women. However, to return to our subject: Saxton loves you, and has gone away with a saddened heart."
This was said gravely. "As though," Miss Duke remarked to herself—"really as though a heart was of consequence!"
"I presume he will soon forget," she said carelessly, as she took up her embroidery again.
"Yes, no doubt," replied Captain Newell. "I remember once on Staten Island, and again out in Mississippi, when he was even more—Yes, as you say, he will soon forget."
"Then why do you so continually speak of him?" said Miss Duke sharply. Such prompt corroboration was not, after all, as agreeable as it should have been to a well-regulated mind.
"I speak of him, Miss Duke, because I wish to know whether it is only your Southern girlish pride that speaks, or whether you really, as would be most natural, love him as he loves you; for, in the latter case, you would be able, I think, to fix and retain his somewhat fickle fancy. He is a fine fellow, and, as I said before, it would be but natural, Miss Duke, that you should love him."
"I do not love him," said Gardis, quickly and angrily, putting in her stitches all wrong. Who was this person, daring to assume what would or would not be natural for her to do?
"Very well; I believe you. And now that I know the truth, I will tell you why I come here: you have asked me several times. I too love you, Miss Duke."
Gardis had risen. "You?" she said—"you?"
"Yes, I; I too."