“You think, then, I’ve no right to marry him?”
“No right? God forbid! I only meant——”
“That you’d rather I didn’t marry any friend of yours.” She brought it out deliberately, not as a question, but as a mere dispassionate statement of fact.
Darrow in turn stood up and wandered away helplessly to the window. He stood staring out through its small discoloured panes at the dim brown distances; then he moved back to the table.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I meant. You’ll be wretched if you marry a man you’re not in love with.”
He knew the risk of misapprehension that he ran, but he estimated his chances of success as precisely in proportion to his peril. If certain signs meant what he thought they did, he might yet—at what cost he would not stop to think—make his past pay for his future.
The girl, at his words, had lifted her head with a movement of surprise. Her eyes slowly reached his face and rested there in a gaze of deep interrogation. He held the look for a moment; then his own eyes dropped and he waited.
At length she began to speak. “You’re mistaken—you’re quite mistaken.”
He waited a moment longer. “Mistaken——?”
“In thinking what you think. I’m as happy as if I deserved it!” she suddenly proclaimed with a laugh.