“We may as well talk plain English,” he answered. “If you mean to ask if she is in love with me, I can tell you emphatically that she is not.”
“Oh, John, that is only your mistake! I was afraid that was the trouble.”
“Now, see here, Polly, I happen to know that Patricia Illingworth doesn’t care the ghost of a pin about me, and never did—any more than I care for her. I like her, but like isn’t love. She and Houghton Swift have had a quarrel—”
“Houghton Swift!” gasped Polly—“Oh!”
“Yes, Houghton Swift. I think it is coming out all right—looks that way—wish I could be as sure of something else.”
He was staring down the road now, his hands gripping the wheel. Polly could see his fingers tighten their hold.
“I’m ashamed to have made such a stupid blunder,” she began. “I thought—”
They had rounded a curve, and the car had come to a stop on a level stretch between the tall pines. John Eustis was bending towards her. It was doubtful that he had heard a word of her half-spoken apology.
“Polly,” he said, “if I had not believed that I was master of myself I should not have come up here. I had decided against it, and then Kate urged me, and I yielded. I soon found how things were going with me, and yesterday I kept as far away from you as I well could; then this morning Kate muddled up matters and—I beg your pardon—now you have most unconsciously spurred me on—until I must speak! Polly, I want you! Do you love me, Polly? Have you held off, believing that I belonged to Patricia? Have you, Polly?”
The girl sat like one struck dumb. This sudden revelation, so utterly unforeseen, had left her white and rigid, her eyes filled to the brim with pain.