"If you are not lovers," I said, "what right have you to marry?"
She seemed a little staggered, as indeed she might be by my boldness.
"You are very mediaeval," she remarked.
"The mediaeval sometimes survives. It is as true now as then that loveless marriages are a curse and a sin," I answered. "It is the one thing which remains now as it was in the beginning."
She looked at me furtively, almost timidly.
"I should like to know why you are speaking to me like this," she said. "I do not want to seem unkind, but do you think that the length of our acquaintance warrants it?"
"I do not know how long I have known you," I answered. "I do not remember the time when I did not know you. You are one of those people to whom I must say the things which come into my mind. I think that if you do not love Colonel Ray you have no right to marry him."
She looked me in the face. Her cheeks were flushed with walking, and the wind had blown her hair into becoming confusion.
"Mr. Ducaine," she said, "do you consider that Colonel Ray is your friend?"
"He has been very good to me," I answered.