She looked up, a little fear of him still in her face.
"How can I?" she asked, but in her voice there was forgiveness already.
Her womanly instinct, though she was so young, told her that the fault was hers, and that considering the provocation it was not a great one—what were a few kisses, even such kisses as his, in a lifetime? And she had tempted him beyond all bounds and repented of it. Before the storm she had raised in him, her fancied woes sank away and seemed infinitely small. She knew that she had worked herself up to emotion and tears, though not half sure of what she was saying, that she had exaggerated all she knew and suggested all she did not know, that she had almost been acting a part to satisfy something in her which she could not understand. And by her acting she had roused the savage truth in her very face and it had swept down everything before it. She had not guessed such possibilities. Before the tempest of his love all she had ever felt or dreamed of feeling seemed colourless and cold. She dreaded to rouse it again, and yet she could never forget the instant thrill that had quivered through her when he had lifted her from her feet.
When she had answered him with her question, he stood still in silence for a moment. She was too perfect in his eyes for him to cast the blame upon her, yet he knew that it had not been all his fault. And in the lower man was the mad triumph of having kissed her and of having told her, once for all, the whole meaning of his being. She looked down, and he could not see her eyes. There was no chair near. To see her face he dropped upon his knee and lightly touched her hands that lay idly in her lap. She started, fearing another outbreak.
"Please—please!" he said softly, using the very word she had used to him.
"Yes—but—" She hesitated and then raised her eyes.
The mask of his face was all softened, and his lips trembled a little. His hands quivered, too, as they touched hers.
"Please!" he repeated. "I promise. Indeed, I promise. Forgive me."
She smiled, all at once, dreamily. All his emotion, and her desire for it, were gone.
"I asked you to be my friend," she said. "I meant it, you know. How could you? It was not kind."