He strode away, back again to where she sat in graceful ease on the end of her canoe. “I’m not so thundering sure of that!” he cried. “By Jove, you sometimes make me feel as if I had a halter round my neck. Where did you get this infernal insistence?”
“From my father,” said she, quiet and calm. “I can’t help it. When my heart gets set on a thing I hold on like grim death.”
He looked round, like a man dreaming. “Am I awake? Am I really awake?” he demanded of lake and trees and stones. Then he addressed her, “What are you up to? I know you don’t love me. I know you don’t want to marry me. Then why do you do it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just can’t help it. Sometimes when I’m alone and think over things I’ve said to you I can’t believe it was really I—or that such words really were uttered.... There can be only one explanation.”
“And what is that? For Heaven’s sake, let’s have it.”
“That I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you love me.”
“Really!” exclaimed he, with a fantastic attempt at scornful irony; and away he strode, to halt at his former seat, the big bowlder under the tree. “Really!” he repeated.
“You must see it yourself,” urged she, serious and earnest. “Honestly, Chang, could a girl talk to you as I have—a girl as proud and as modest as I am—and with no experience—could she do it, unless she were absolutely sure she was talking to a man who loved her?”
There was something akin to terror in his eyes—the terror of a man who feels himself sinking in ocean or quicksand and looks about in vain for aid. Down he sat, to stare out over the shining, sparkling lake.
“You know I’m right,” said she with quiet conviction.