"Miss Burton refused you!" exclaimed Ida in utter amazement. "You were but a cold wooer, I imagine," she added reproachfully, and she rose from the seat and stood aloof from him.
"You know well, Miss Ida," he said earnestly, "that a falsehood would be impossible in this place, and I assure you I honestly did the best I could. We have plighted our faith in a friendship that will be a brother's love on my part, but she said solemnly that she would regard offers of marriage from me, now or at any future time, as an insult. In brief, she has at last told me her story. Her lover is dead, and it was because she detected certain resemblances in my appearance to him that she looked at me sometimes in the way you described. I had surmised as much before, but at one time hoped that this accidental resemblance might give me a vantage-ground in winning her from a past that I knew must have been very sad indeed. My resemblance was only an outward one, the man himself was immeasurably my superior, and on the principle of contrast alone Jennie Burton could never think of me. But her love for Harrold Fleetwood is her life. It is a strange, unearthly devotion that time only increases. I felt weeks since that I could worship her as a saint far easier than I could love her as a woman, and I now know the reason. It would indeed be an insult for any man to speak to her of love and marriage, if he knew what I have learned to-day."
"Then poor Cousin Ik has no chance either," said Ida, with tears in her eyes.
"No, I do not think he has, although she has learned to appreciate him. She spoke of him as a 'true, noble-hearted gentleman,' and such terms from the lips of a woman like Jennie Burton are better than a king's title. As far as my complacent and deliberate wooing of last summer is concerned, I believe that when it did not pain and annoy her she was rather amused by it. She had seen the genuine thing, you know, and thus I was the only one imposed upon by a sentiment which at the time received the unqualified approval of my infallible reason and judgment. The very superior Mr. Harold Van Berg once declined your acquaintance, as you may remember. Take your full revenge upon him now, for you see to what a battered and dilapidated condition of body and mind he has been reduced. He has developed a genius for blundering and getting himself and other people into trouble, that is quite sublime. If ever a man needed daily advice and counsel, he does, and the incalculable service that you have rendered him in this respect leads him to come to you again."
"Indeed, sir," said Ida, turning away with a crimson face, "I have no further advice to give you. Mr. Eltinge will soon be back; take him as your counsellor. I'm going to gather some flowers for dinner."
He at once was on his crutches and in close pursuit, but she flitted away before him till in despair he returned to the rustic seat. Then she shyly and hesitatingly began to approach, apparently absorbed in tying up her flowers.
"Haven't you observed that I am a cripple?" he asked.
"I have observed that you are a very nimble one."
"I think you are very cruel to treat a helpless man in this style."
"Indeed, sir, I have not taken away your crutches. When you spoke of a helpless man, to whom did you refer?"