"Yes," I answered. "But—I loved you."
"And now," she went on, "after your years of self-indulgence, of getting what you wanted, no matter about the cost, you see me again. You find I have mended my heart, have coaxed a few flowers of happiness to bloom. You find there was something you did not destroy, something you think it will make you happier to destroy."
"Yes," I answered, "I came to try to make you as unhappy as I am. For I love you."
She drew a long breath. "Well," she said evenly, "for the first time in your life you are defeated. I learned the lesson you so thoroughly taught me. And I built the wall round my garden high and strong. You—" she smiled, a little raillery, a little scorn—"you can't break in, Harvey—nor slip in."
"No need," I said. "For I am in—I've always been in."
Her bosom rose and fell quickly, and her eyes shifted. But that was for an instant only. "If you were as brave as you are bold!" she scoffed.
"If I were as brave without you as I should be with you!" I replied. Then: "But you love as a woman loves—herself first, the man afterward."
"Harvey Sayler denouncing selfishness!"
"Do not sneer," I said. "For—I love you as a man loves. A poor, pale shadow of ideal love, no doubt, but a man's best, Elizabeth."
I saw that she was shaken; but even as I began to thrill with a hope so high that it was giddy with fear, she was once more straight and strong and calm.