“I am glad that you still think of me.”
Vane looked at her dense black hair, and the soft shine of moisture in her upturned eyes. “The thoughts that I cannot say are so much stronger than the things I can, that they overpower the others, and I can say nothing,” he said.
“Do you know, I often have imaginary conversations with you?”
“Tell me some of them.”
“I cannot. I should say too much if I said anything.”
“Remember our compact, to be only friends,” said Vane, gravely. “Do not speak as if you were more than a friend, or I shall think you less.”
“I do remember our compact. That is why I do not say them.”
The words sounded strangely, but Vane knew she was sincere when she uttered them. When she pressed his hand that night at parting, she still managed to let Vane know that he was to put no false interpretation on her friendliness. She was a woman, and she did not know herself, he thought; but she was not a girl, and she knew him.
A day or two after this they were drifting under the moonlight on the lake. Her beauty had never seemed so marvellous to Vane as on that evening; the soft darkness of her hair, and shadowed light of her blue eyes, like the light of the night sky with the moon at the zenith. Her head was drooping slightly, and one round white arm, bared to the elbow, was trailing with a tender ripple in the water.
“Are you never going to marry, friend of mine?” said Vane, dropping his oars to look at her.