"I believe," said Horace, gloomily, still determined not to let any direct avowal pass his lips, "it would be best that I should keep away."
Her half-closed eyes shone through their long lashes; the violets on her breast rose and fell. "I don't think I understand," she said, in a tone that was both hurt and offended.
There is a pleasure in yielding to some temptations that more than compensates for the pain of any previous resistance. Come what might, he was not going to be misunderstood any longer.
"If I must tell you," he said, "I've fallen desperately, hopelessly, in love with you. Now you know the reason."
"It doesn't seem a very good reason for wanting to go away and never see me again. Does it?"
"Not when I've no right to speak to you of love?"
"But you've done that!"
"I know," he said penitently; "I couldn't help it. But I never meant to. It slipped out. I quite understand how hopeless it is."
"Of course, if you are so sure as all that, you are quite right not to try."
"Sylvia! You can't mean that—that you do care, after all?"