She was examining him coolly, critically, and he knew it.
“Not a bit!” he reiterated, hacking out a tuft of grass with his right heel. Then his miserable eyes rose fiercely upon the girl. She had been waiting for this look, however.
“You are making a great mistake,” she said, “if you are imagining yourself the least little atom in love with me.”
For the instant her outspokenness enraged him; then it made him meek.
“I am imagining no such thing, Missy; I know it. But I also know that it is a mistake—when you are so far above me.”
“There you go! That is your mistake. It's the other way about—it's you that's so far above me. John William, if you only knew what a bad lot I am—-”
“I don't care what you are.”
“You don't know what I am. That's just it! I'm not what you think I am, I'm not what I make myself out to be; I'm not—I'm not!”
She was speaking passionately, being, in fact, once more on the verge of a full confession. All in a moment the impulse had come over her, and nothing could have stopped her but the thing that did. John William was not listening to a word she said; he was only gazing in her eyes.
“I don't care what you are, Missy; I shouldn't care if you were as black as sin! No, I should like it, for the blacker you were, the nearer I should be to you—the more chance I should have. If you were bad—which is all nonsense—you would still be too good for me; but I should love you, Missy, whether or no. I shall love you all my days!” He looked at her once with ravening eyes, and then spun round upon his heel. She called him back in a broken voice to tell him everything; but he shook his head without looking round, and the tree-trunks closed behind him like a door. Then Missy drew a very long breath, wiped her eyes, and sat down to think.