"Not till I have some sort of explanation," he said. "Is it that you do not care for me, Mary?"
She turned round upon him with colour enough in her cheeks and a strange angry light burning in her eyes.
"You might have spared me that also," she exclaimed. "You are determined to humiliate me, to make me remember that hateful afternoon in my rooms—oh, I can say it if I like—when I kissed you. I knew then that sooner or later you would make up your mind that it was your duty to ask me to marry you. Only you might have done it by letter. It would have been kinder. Never mind. You have purged your conscience, and you have got your answer. Now let us go."
Brooks looked at her for a moment amazed beside himself with wonder and self-reproach.
"Mary," he said, quietly, "I give you my word that nothing which I have said this evening has the least connection with that afternoon. I give you my word that not for a moment have I thought of it in connection with what I have said to you to-night."
She looked at him steadfastly, and her eyes were full of things which he could not understand.
"When did you make up your mind—to ask me this?"
He pointed to the little table where they had been sitting.
Only a few minutes ago. I confess it was an impulse. I think that I realized as we sat there how dear you had grown to me, Mary—how dull life was without you."
"You say these things to me," she exclaimed, "when all the time you love another woman."