“That's it! You don't understand it, I'm sure,” interposed Billy, feverishly. “It may not be such a change, after all. You may be deceiving yourself,” she finished hopefully.
The man sighed.
“I can't wonder you think so, of course,” he almost groaned. “I was afraid it would be like that. When one's been painted black all one's life, it's not easy to change one's color, of course.”
“Oh, but I didn't say that black wasn't a very nice color,” stammered Billy, a little wildly.
“Thank you.” Cyril's heavy brows rose and fell the fraction of an inch. “Still, I must confess that just now I should prefer another shade.”
He paused, and Billy cast distractedly about in her mind for a simple, natural change of subject. She had just decided to ask him what he thought of the condition of the Brittany peasants, when he questioned abruptly, and in a voice that was not quite steady:
“Billy, what should you say if I should tell you that the avowed woman-hater had strayed so far from the prescribed path as to—to like one woman well enough as to want to—marry her?”
The word was like a match to the gunpowder of Billy's fears. Her self-control was shattered instantly into bits.
“Marry? No, no, you wouldn't—you couldn't really be thinking of that,” she babbled, growing red and white by turns. “Only think how a wife would—would b-bother you!”
“Bother me? When I loved her?”