“You were running away from me?” He leaned down to her face.
If she dared, she would be pert with him; she would not have to run away from him!
“You know that I love you! I have been waiting for this minute, this woman, all these lonely years.”
Her head she kept turned from him. He could not see the little maternal smile that ran around the curves of her mouth. Those years, filled to the brim with stern work, had not been lonely. Lonely moments he had had, that was all. She could understand how a man like Rickard would find those moments lonely. There, he and Tom stood together. He was asking her to fill those minutes; those only. But he did not know that. He would not know what she meant if she told him that he was asking her to fill a corner of his heart!
“Nothing for me?” He stopped, and made her face him, by taking both of her hands in his.
She would not look at him yet, would not meet the look which always compelled her will, stultified her speech. She had something to say first.
“We don’t know each other; that is, you don’t know me!” She was not going to let them make that mistake, let him make that mistake!
“Is that all?” There was relief in his voice. For a bad moment he had wondered if it was possible, if Estrada—“I don’t know you? Haven’t I seen you day by day? Haven’t I seen your self-control tried, proved—haven’t I seen your justice, when you could not understand— Look at me!”
She shook her head, her eyes on the sand under her feet. He could scarcely catch her words. They did not know each other. He did not know her!
“Dear! I don’t know whether you love red or blue, that’s a fact; Ibsen or Rostand; heat or cold. Does that matter? I know you!”