"But you dislike me," I urged.
With the same troubled, far-off look in her beautiful eyes, she repeated, automatically:
"I do not dislike you."
For a moment, like the defiant fluttering of a banner over a besieged and well-nigh surrendered city, Hope sprang up to raise her red flag upon the ramparts of my heart; but at the sight of the dull indifference in the girl's eyes, banner and banner-bearer sank back.
"Perhaps even," I said in a foolish and feeble spirit of attempted irony, "perhaps even you like me."
"Perhaps even," she echoed, "I like you."
"Kate," I cried, all the blood in my veins running riot, "it is not possible—for God's sake don't play with me—but it is not possible—tell me—it is not possible, it can't be—that—that—you care."
In a moment she was alive again. Her eyes, all her soul in them, left the far-off skies, and leapt to meet mine.
"I care," she said, softly.
The next instant, and before I could stay her, she was gone.