“I’m sure I don’t see what difference it makes,” replied he. “You don’t mean to say you’ve been suspecting me of wanting your money?”
She hung her head foolishly. “I’ve got a horrid mind,” confessed she. “It came to me that maybe you might be holding out for fear father’d cut me off.”
“You have got your nerve!” ejaculated he. “I never heard of the like!—never!”
“Now you’re disgusted with me,” cried she. “I know I oughtn’t to have told you. But I can’t help telling you everything. It isn’t fair, Chang, to think I’m worse than most girls, just because I let you see into me. You know it isn’t fair.”
“You’re right, Rix,” said he impulsively; and the sense that he had wronged her pushed him on to say, “It’s your frankness and your courage that I admire so much. I wish you weren’t attractive. Then it’d be easier for me to do what I’ve got to do.”
Her face became radiant. “Then you do care for me?”
“Why, of course I do,” said he heartily—but in a tone most unsatisfactory to ears waiting to drink in what her ears longed for. “Do you suppose I could stand so much of anyone I didn’t like?”
“You aren’t frank with me!” said she a little sullenly.
“Why not?”
“You’ve some reason why you won’t let yourself say you love me. And you won’t tell me what it is.”