She looked straight in my eyes.
"Hilda," I said, "you—you don't still—that way—about me?"
"Don't I?" she said slowly. "Why else would I lie awake to hear Mr. Fulton go swimming? Why else would I be wanting to go with the Red Cross to the front where the bullets are?"
"But you told me in Aiken that you—that you despised me."
"It would be a poor love," she said, "that couldn't live down a little contempt that had jealousy for its father and mother."
We continued to look at each other while the waiter brought and served the coffee. Then I said: "Hilda, I know one thing. What you've got to give ought not to go begging."
Her eyes part-way filled, but she gave her shoulders a valiant little shrug. Then, with a sudden strong emotion, and a thrill in her voice: "That's for you to say," she said.
"Do you mean that?"
"You had only to ask," she said; "ever."
I was deeply moved, and a conviction that for me there might still be something true and fine raced into my mind. And was followed by a whole host of gentle and unselfish and pitying thoughts, as to a tree at evening flocks of starlings come to roost.