"Ye—es," says she, as if meditating.
"Of course, if you don't want any people here——"
"But I do. I do really. I hate being alone!" cries she, springing into sudden life and leaning forward with her hands clasped on her knees.
"How few rings you have!" says he suddenly.
CHAPTER XV.
HOW TITA TELLS OF TWO STRANGE DREAMS, AND OF HOW THEY MOVED HER. AND HOW MAURICE SETS HIS SOUL ON ASKING A GUEST TO OAKDEAN; AND HOW HE GAINS HIS DESIRE.
"Not one, except this," touching her engagement ring. "That you have given me."
"You don't care for them, then?"
"Yes I do. I love them, but there was nobody to give them to me.
I was very young, you see, when poor daddy died."
She stops; her mouth takes a mournful curve; the large gray eyes look with a sort of intensity through the windows to something—something beyond—but something that Rylton cannot see. After all, is she so trivial? She cares, at all events, for the memory of that dead father. Rylton regards her with interest.