"I won't believe you."
"You must. It has come to that," she went on, whispering. "I've given you the best of me, the very best, what no man has had of me, affection, strong and tender, friendship, clean and wholesome. I gave gladly. I'm not sorry. They were sweeter even than the love in my breast which stifled—which still stifles me."
"Olga!"
The suppressed passion of her confession startled him. Her half-closed eyes burned through the dusk, then paled again.
"It's true," she went on haltingly. "I love you. My love—I'm proud of it—prouder of it than of anything I've ever been or known—because it's sweet and clean. That's why I can look you in the eyes and tell you so. Why shouldn't I? What is my woman's pride beside that other pride? I have not stopped—as she has—to conquer."
"Sh—!"
"She stooped to conquer. I'm glad—glad—it shows the difference between us. It weighs us one against the other. You shall know. One day you shall know. You'll tire of her. It's always the ending of a conquest like that."
"You're mad," he whispered, aghast.
She threw up her hands and pressed them to her breast a moment. Then, with a quivering intake of the breath, the tension broke, and her hands dropped to her sides, her laughter jarring him strangely.
"Curious, isn't it?" he heard her saying. "You're the last man in the world I would have dreamed of. I used to laugh at you, you know. You were so gauche and so ill-mannered. I took you up as a sort of game. It amused me to try and see what could be made of you. If you'd made love to me, I would have laughed at you. But you didn't. Why didn't you, John? It would have saved us all such a lot of trouble."