"Can't you see that she's in love with you—you?" cried the boy.
The two looked at each other intently for a moment, despair in the eyes of one, incredulous joy in those of the other. Sherrod could feel the blood rushing swifter and swifter to his heart, to his throat, to his face, to his eyes. Something red and hot floated across his vision, turning the whole world a ruddy hue; something strong and light seemed striving to lift his whole being in the air.
"Well, why don't you say you don't believe it?" said a voice in front of him.
"I—I can't say a word. You paralyze me. My heavens, Converse, I never dreamed of such a thing and I know you're mistaken. Why, it cannot be—it shouldn't be," he almost gasped.
"Bah! What's the use? Women don't ask permission to fall in love, do they? They just fall, that's all. I'm not saying it is absolutely true, but I'm making a pretty fine guess. She is more interested in you than in any man she has ever known. I know that much."
"Interested, perhaps, yes, but that is not love. Hang it, Douglass, she cares for you."
"No, she doesn't, Jud; no, she doesn't. No such luck, I don't appeal to her at all and I never can. I step down and out; you've a clear field so far as I am concerned. If I can't have her, I'd rather see her go to you than to any one in the world. You're good and honest and a man."
"Impossible! Impossible! It can't be that. You don't understand the real situation——" floundered Jud.
"I understand it as well as you do, my boy,—better, I think. I know Celeste Wood and that's all there is to it. You've won something that a hundred men have fought for and lost. You're a lucky dog."
Jud Sherrod went to his rooms that night, after a dizzy evening at the theatre and the club, his head whirling with the intoxication coming from a mixture of rejoicing, regret, shame, apprehension, incredulity,—a hundred irrepressible thoughts. What if Converse's supposition should be true? Then, what a beast he had been! This night he slept not a wink—in fact, he did not go to bed. He even thought of suicide as he paced the floor or buried his face in the cushions on his couch.