“Why will you not drop that tone?” she said, almost piteously. “Cannot you see how serious the thing is to me?”
“It is quite as serious to me,” he replied. “Men have confided in me—mostly fools—a woman never. Pray do not continue in that strain.”
“Then find words for me—be frank.”
“I will. You mean to say, Miss Craven, that I think you a fool because, acting on the hint which I somewhat vaguely, but really in good faith, dropped, you tried to impersonate the figure of the legend at that ridiculous cave. Is not that what you would say if you had the courage to be thoroughly frank?”
“Thank you,” said she, in a still weaker voice. “It is not so easy being frank all in a moment.”
“No, not if one has accustomed oneself to—let us say good manners,” he added.
“When I started for the boats after you had all left for that nonsense at the village, I felt certain that you were my friend as well as Harold Wynne’s, and that you had good reason for believing that he would be about the cave shortly after our hour of dining. I’m not very romantic.”
“Pardon me,” said he. “You are not quite frank. If you were you would say that, while secretly romantic, you follow the example of most young women nowadays in ridiculing romance.”
“Quite right,” she said. “I admitted just now that I found it difficult to be frank all in a moment. Anyhow I believed that if I were to play the part of the Wraith of the Cave within sight of Harold Wynne, he might—oh, how could I have been such a fool? But you—you, I say, were largely responsible for it, Mr. Airey.” She was now speaking not merely reproachfully but fiercely. “Why should you drop those hints—they were much more than hints—about his being so deeply impressed with the romance—about his having gone to the cave on the previous evening, if you did not mean me to act upon them?”
“I did mean you to act upon them,” said he. “I meant that you and he should come together last night, and I know that if you had come together, he would have asked you to marry him. I meant all that, because I like him and I like you too—yes, in spite of your frankness.”