"Yes! Stephen, and he loves me. Oh, you look astonished. I said you did not know what love meant. Had you really felt the passion you believe you feel, you would have guessed. You like me because we get on well together; because you think I am pretty." Here she blushed and laughed. "I am talking foolishly I fear. But what I mean to say is that it is only Ida Endicotte you love, not the real woman. If you did; if your heart was filled with a true passion, you would have seen that Stephen and I understand one another.
"Has he asked you to--" stammered Herrick.
"There was no need that he should ask," replied Ida. "I am quite content to wait until he speaks, because I know. And he knows that I know. That is true love Dr. Jim. We do not need mere words."
Jim looked down rather shamefaced. Ida took him by the arm and forced him to face her. "Confess," she said with a laughing face, "you are not quite brokenhearted that I will not marry you?"
"No!" replied Jim rather astonished at the calmness of his feelings. "I can't say I feel suicidal."
Ida shrugged her queenly shoulders. "You see," was her remark, "what I said was true. You do not love the true woman. No, Dr. Jim," she put her hand into his, "I am glad we have had this talk. The moon can never be yours, so do not cry for it. When you are really and truly in love, you will feel very different to what you do now I assure you."
Jim more himself, laughed. "Where did you learn all this lore?"
"Mother Nature taught it to me," laughed Ida. "I needed no teaching. I knew years ago that Stephen and I were born for one another. Yet we have always been merely friends; nothing more. He has not even said to me as much as you have done. We understand, both of us. That is why I have refused so many good offers. Other people could not understand, not even Bess, clever as she is, but I knew, so did Stephen. It is for this reason I refuse you Dr. Jim. Not that you have asked me," she finished laughing.
Jim laughed too, for he was now once more at his ease with her. "I have been making a fool of myself," he said, "and you are a dear good woman to take me in such a spirit. I suppose it was not really love after all."
"My dear Dr. Jim, you do not even know the meaning of the word. But if I had chosen you would have learned it. Do you know," she added with another laugh, "you remind me of the cook, who was of that 'appy disposition that she could marry anyone? You had better be careful Dr. Jim, for any clever woman who let you believe she loved you could become Mrs. Herrick!"