“I do indeed. It was an amusing rehearsal of what you will begin to enact in reality some of these days. You will make a most poetical lover.”
“Do you think so? O Miss Rothesay, do you really think so?” And then his eagerness subsided into vivid blushes, which really caused Olive pain. She began to fear that, unwittingly, she had been playing on some tender string, and that there was more earnest feeling in Lyle than she had ever dreamed of. She would not for the world have jested thus, had she thought there was any real attachment in the case. So, a good deal touched and interested, she began to talk to him in her own quiet, affectionate way.
“You must not mistake me, Lyle; you must not think I am laughing at you. But I did not know that you had ever considered these things. Though there is plenty of time—as you are only just twenty-one. Tell me candidly—you know you may—do you think you were ever seriously in love?”
“It is very strange for you to ask me these questions.”
“Then do not answer them. Forgive me, I only spoke from the desire I have to see you happy: you, who are so mingled with many recollections; you, poor Sara's brother, and my own little favourite in olden time.” And speaking in a subdued and tender voice, Olive held out her hand to Lyle.
He snatched it eagerly. “How I love to hear you speak thus! Oh, if I could but tell you all.”
“You may, indeed,” said Olive, gently. “I am sure, my dear Lyle, you can trust me. Tell me the whole story.”
—“The story of a dream I had, all my boyhood through, of a beautiful, noble creature, whom I reverenced, admired, and at last have dared to love,” Lyle answered, in much agitation.
Olive felt quite sorry for him. “I did not expect this,” she said. “You poetic dreamers have so many light fancies. My poor Lyle, is it indeed so? You, whom I should have thought would choose a new idol every month, have you all this while been seriously and heartily in love, and with one girl only? Are you quite sure it was but one?” And she half smiled.
He seemed now more confused than ever. “One cannot but speak truth to you,” he murmured. “You make me tell you everything, whether I will or no. And if I did not, you might hear it from some one else, and that would make me very miserable.”