“Are you ashamed of me, Lyddy?” he asked.
“No,” she said, meeting his gaze steadily. “I am a little disappointed, that's all. It is you who are ashamed.”
“I am,” said he simply. “It wasn't fair.”
“Love will endure. I am content to wait,” she said with a wistful smile.
“You will be my wife, no matter what happens? You won't let this make any difference?”
“You are not angry with me?”
“Angry? Why should I be angry with you, Lyddy? For shaking some sense into me? For seeing through me with that wonderful, far-sighted brain of yours? Why, I could go down on my knees to you. I could———”
“Let me think, Freddy,” she cried, suddenly confronted by her own declaration of the night before. She had told James Brood that she would marry this discredited son of his the instant he was ready to take her unto himself. She had flung that in the older man's face, and she had meant every word of it.
“I—I take back what I said, dear. I will marry you to-morrow.” She spoke rapidly, jerkily; her eyes were very dark and luminous.
“What has come over you?” He stared at her in astonishment. “What—oh, I see! You are not sure of me. You———”