"Well, my little spring girl?"
"Come and sit here, where I can see you."
"You have only to tell me what I'm to do," he said and obeyed at once.
How different from the old affected Gilbert—this quiet man with the burning eyes who sat with his elbows on his knees and his back bent towards her and the light of one of the lanterns on his handsome face. She had played with a soul as well as with a heart, and also, it appeared, with a brain. How fatal had been her effect upon men—Martin out of armor and Gilbert on the wrong side of the thin dividing line. Men's love—it was too big and good a thing to have played with, if she had only stopped to think, or some one had been wise and kind enough to tell her. Who cares? These two men cared and so did she, bitterly, terribly, everlastingly.
Would Martin hear—oh, would he hear? Martin, Martin!
There was a long, strange silence.
"Well, my little Joan?"
"Well, Gilbert?"
He picked up her hand and put his lips to it. "Still thinking?" he asked, with a curious catch in his voice.
"Yes, Gilbert, give me time."