"It's base of me—it's foolish, too, for it can really do no good. But, you see, I don't quite know you, do I?"
"And don't quite want to?" I was unkind enough to say, but only with the same motive as before. I wanted to get at the bottom of it—find out what it was she dreaded, and dared not acknowledge that she did.
She was a little hurt and said that it wasn't fair to say so, that I wasn't playing the game. I was properly contrite, and, for the moment, gave up the duel.
"Let it be a promise, then," I said.
At this, I thought she looked relieved; and that she should be so at my bare word touched me. It did cross my mind that, perceiving my adaptability to this sort of affair, she might perhaps have taken an adventitious means of heightening the romance of the situation with such innuendo; but she seemed to me to be altogether too direct for that, and too sapient, as well.
"Thank you. I may hold you to that promise. Does that seem ungracious?"
There it was. There was most definitely something which she didn't wish me to know, and which my advent jeoparded. I was truly sorry for her now, and a little embarrassed at my position. Meanwhile her eyes were steadily questioning mine, as if to make sure that I was to be trusted. I took up her last remark to relieve the tensity of her mood.
"You couldn't be ungracious, I'm sure. I should as soon suspect Leah!"
She laughed more freely. "Oh, I'm so glad you appreciate her! That says more for you than all the rest."
"The rest?" I insisted, quite ready for a compliment.