"Ah," he answered her, with a melancholy gravity, "you will not deny it!"
She repeated her laugh, though it rang less bitterly than before. She had expected him to meet her irony in a much more rebellious spirit.
"I don't like to have my blood-relations abused in my hearing," she said. "I am in love with all of them, that way, if that is the way you mean."
"That is not the way I mean."
They were now but a few yards from the waiting carriage. The footman, seeing them, descended from his box, and stood beside the opened door.
"I shall not return with you," continued Kindelon, "since I perceive you do not wish my company longer. But I offer you my apologies for having spoken disparagingly of your cousin. I was wrong, and I beg your pardon."
With the last words he extended his hand. Pauline took it.
"I have not said that I did not wish your company," she answered, "but if you choose to infer so, it is your own affair."
"I do infer so, and I infer more.... It is best that I—I should not see you often, like this. There is a great difference between you and me. That cousin of yours hated me at sight. Your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie, hated me at sight as well. Perhaps their worldly wisdom was by no means to blame, either.... Oh, I understand more than you imagine!"
There was not only real grief in Kindelon's voice, but an under-throb of real passion.