“Because we love each other, Chang,” she said as simply and sweetly as a child.
He laughed gently. “What a romancer you are! Fortunately, I’m a man. I don’t take advantage of a baby.”
“I’m twenty-two.”
“And as ignorant of the world as a baby,” declared he, like grandfather to grandchild.
“I know what I want when I see it, just as well as you do, Chang,” she replied steadily. “Better—because you’re making me do all the talking—which isn’t gentlemanly of you.” Her eyes filled with tears—and very lovely they looked—like dew-drenched violets. “If it wasn’t that you’re holding back simply because you’re poor I’d not forgive you so easily.”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders, turned away abruptly. He strode to the edge of the lake and debated with himself. When he came back to her he was serene though grave. At sight of his expression, which she had eagerly awaited, she shivered. “Rix,” he said—and all the fine frankness and simplicity of his nature were in his eyes and his voice—“it’s lucky for you that I’ve lived a little, or we might be dragging each other into a fearful mess. You think you’ve fallen in love—don’t you?”
“I know it, Chang,” she answered, undaunted.
“Well, I know you haven’t fallen in love with me. You’ve simply fallen in love with love. Your imagination has been giddied by this little adventure that seems so romantic to you. And the day’ll come when you’ll thank me for having had the sense to understand you and to understand that my own strong liking for you isn’t love, either.”
“It’s what I call love,” said she, a solemn, wistful look in the eyes she fixed on him. “Don’t you miss me and think of me all the time when we aren’t together—just as I do? Don’t you come earlier and earlier—just as I do? Didn’t you fight against coming in the rain to-day, just as I did? Weren’t you dreadfully afraid you’d be disappointed, just as I was? And didn’t you simply have to come——”
He suddenly lost his temper. “This is too exasperating!” he cried. “I’ve done wrong to let you come here. I was innocent enough in it——”