“He has asked you, then?”—and the girl almost gnashed her teeth—“Then he has deceived me. No, I will not believe that. It is you who are deceiving me now. If he loved you, you were sure to love him.”
“What am I to do—how am I to convince you? How hard this is!”
“Hard! What, then, must it be to me? You did not think this passion was in me, did you? You judged me by that meek cold-blooded heart of yours. But mine is all burning—burning! Woe be to those who kindled the fire.”
She began to walk to and fro, sweeping past Olive with angry strides. She looked, from head to foot, her mother's child. Hate and love, melting and mingling together, flashed from her black, southern eyes. But in the close mouth there was an iron will, inherited with her northern blood. Suddenly she stopped, and confronted Olive.
“You consider me a mere girl. But I learned to be a woman early. I had need.”
“Poor child!—poor child!”
“How dare you pity me? You think I am dying for love, do you? But no! It is pride—only pride! Why did I not always scorn that pitiful boy? I did once, and he knows it. And afterwards, because there was no one else to care for, and I was lonely, and wanted a home—haughty, and wanted a position—I have humbled myself thus.”
“Then, Christal, if you never did really love him”——
“Who told you that? Not I!” she cried, her broken and contradictory speech revealing the chaos of her mind.
“I say, I did love him—more than you, with your cold prudence, could ever dream of! What could such an one as you know about love? Yet you have taken him from me.