For a moment she looked away from the whim which they were slowly nearing, and her eyes met his.
"I have," she admitted frankly; "I have had a particularly poor experience of them. Yet I am sorry to find you so different from the rest; I can't tell you how sorry I am to find you true to me."
"Sorry?" he said tenderly; for her voice was full of pain, and he could not bear that. "Why should you be sorry, dear?"
"Why—because I never dreamt of being true to you."
For some reason her face flamed as he watched it. There was a pause. Then he said:
"You are not engaged; are you in love?"
"Very far from it."
"Then why mind? If there is no one else you care for you shall care for me yet. I'll make you. I'll wait for you. You don't know me! I won't give you up until you are some other fellow's wife."
His stern eyes, the way his mouth shut on the words, and the manly determination of the words themselves gave the girl a thrill of pleasure and of pride; but also a pang; for at that moment she felt the wish to love him alongside the inability, and all at once she was as sorry for herself as for him.
"What should you mind?" repeated Swift.