He crossed the barn. One of the women had fainted, others were busy collecting their jewelry. The chauffeurs had hurried off to relight the lamps of the cars.
"I must tell you this," Richard said, drawing a a little nearer to the girl. "Please don't be angry with me. I went to your father this afternoon. I made an idiot of myself—I couldn't help it. I was staring at you and he noticed it. I didn't want him to think that I was such an ill-mannered brute as I seemed. I tried to make him understand but he wouldn't listen to me. I'd like to tell you now—now that I have the opportunity—that I think you're just—"
She smiled very faintly.
"What is it that you wish to tell me?" she asked patiently.
"That I love you," he wound up abruptly.
There was a moment's silence, a silence with a background of strange noises. People were talking, almost shouting to one another with excitement. Newcomers were being told the news. The man whom Hunterleys had captured was shrieking and cursing. From beyond came the tooting of motor-horns as the cars returned. Lane heard nothing. He saw nothing but the white face of the girl as she stood in the shadows of the barn, with its walls of roughly threaded pine trunks.
"But I have scarcely ever spoken to you in my life!" she protested, looking at him in astonishment.
"It doesn't make any difference," he replied. "You know I am speaking the truth. I think, in your heart, that you, too, know that these things don't matter, now and then. Of course, you don't—you couldn't feel anything of what I feel, but with me it's there now and for always, and I want to have a chance, just a chance to make you understand. I'm not really mad. I'm just—in love with you."
She smiled at him, still in a friendly manner, but her face had clouded. There was a look in her eyes almost of trouble, perhaps of regret.
"I am so sorry," she murmured. "It is only a sudden feeling on your part, isn't it? You have been so splendid to-night that I can do no more than thank you very, very much. And as for what you have told me, I think it is an honour, but I wish you to forget it. It is not wise for you to think of me in that way. I fear that I cannot even offer you my friendship."