"You are forgetting that I said she was an imaginary girl," he parried.
"You said so at first; but afterward you admitted that she wasn't. Also, you promised me you would show me her picture after we should get out of the woods."
"I have never had her picture," he denied. "I said I would show you what she looks like. Come to the window where the light is better."
She went with him half-mechanically. Between the two windows there was an old-fashioned pier-glass set in the wall. Before she realized what he was doing he had led her before the mirror.
"There she is, Lucetta," he said softly; "the only girl there is—or ever will be."
She started back with a little cry, putting out her hands as if to push him away.
"No, Donald—a thousand times no!" she flashed out. "Do you think I don't know that this is only another way of telling me how sorry you are for me? You know well enough what people will say when they hear how we have been together for a whole month, alone; and in your splendid chivalry you would——"
He did not let her finish. The hotel parlor was supposed to be a public room, but he ignored that and took her in his arms.
"From the first day, Lucetta, dear—from the very first day!" he argued passionately. "And it grew and grew with your absolute, your simply angelic trust in me until I was half-mad with the desire to tell you. But I couldn't tell you then; I couldn't even let you suspect and still be what you were believing me to be. Don't you think you could learn, in time, you know, to—to——"
Her face was hidden, but she made her refusal quite positive.