She passed into the house as Rhoda stepped out, grave and hesitant and gave him her hand. He held it in his while his eyes studied her face with anxious inquiry.
“Come,” he said, and led her down the steps and into the path to the grape arbor. She looked pale and a little weary, but her serious gray eyes were very bright and in her face still lingered a touch of the exalted mood in which she had left her father. She tried to withdraw her hand from his but he would not let it go, and after a moment she submitted to the firm clasp in which it was held. Once she lifted her eyes to his, but at once turned shyly away, as if she could not endure the look of love and yearning she saw in them.
“Rhoda, you are like a wild rose, in that gown, the sweetest of all roses.” He plucked a red rose, the last one, from a bush they were passing, touched it to his lips and handed it to her. “Last week,” he said, “you gave me a rose for my thoughts. Will you take this one for yours?”
“Yes,” she answered gravely, “yes, I will tell you—I must be very frank with you.”
They went into the arbor, where she sat down on the bench and he stood before her, just as they had done in the moonlight on that evening that seemed now so long ago. The sun, drooping low, sent level shafts of yellow light through the foliage, which glowed darkly against the western brilliance. They fell upon her fair hair and made round her head a sort of aureole. Out of this background her pale face and shining eyes, still illumined by the high thoughts which had lately filled her mind, looked up to meet the adoration which beamed in his countenance. Unconsciously the love-light leaped into her own eyes in quick response, and for an instant they gazed deep into each other’s hearts. Then he bent toward her with outstretched arms.
“Rhoda!” he whispered. “You love me!”
As if suddenly roused from a dream she drew back, and with one hand warded him away. “I can’t marry you, Jeff, I can’t marry you!” she exclaimed in hurried tones.
“But you love me, Rhoda,—I saw it in your eyes! Don’t say you don’t!”
She straightened up and, watching her eagerly, he saw the effort with which she regained her self-control. “Listen, Jeff. Sit down here on the bench beside me, and I’ll try to tell you how it is. I—I do love you—no, don’t take my hand—don’t touch me—I’ve loved you all the time. When you went away, last week, I knew I was going to tell you ‘yes,’ sometime, but I just wanted to make you wait a while—” She flashed her sudden, irradiating smile upon him and he started forward and seized her hand. She drew it away and went on hastily:
“But I hadn’t thought then—I knew it of course, but I hadn’t thought of it—I hadn’t thought of anything but just you—about your owning slaves and believing in slavery. And ever since I remembered it I’ve been trying and trying to convince myself that I wouldn’t mind, that I could make it seem right—but it’s no use, Jeff. I can’t do it.”