Kit coloured, but his mouth was rather hard and his look was steady. "I did feel something like that. In the alameda you were amused and your amusement hurt. I was carried away, but I wanted you. Well, I said if I brought back the men and got another post—— I did bring back the men and have got a better post."
Olivia stopped him, but her look was gentler. "Your venture was very fine, Kit. I was proud of you, and if anything could have moved me—— But I'm not your sort."
"You are the most beautiful girl I have known," Kit declared.
"Yet you're a Puritan and ought to know beauty isn't all; I think you really do know. Well, I won't marry you, Kit. We would risk too much. People think me romantic, but I'm not. In fact, I'm cold and very practical. It looks as if we had changed parts and you were the sentimentalist."
"I loved you," Kit said quietly.
"I know," Olivia admitted. "It counted for much. Perhaps I liked you to love me; I own I'm selfish. But your poverty wasn't altogether the drawback. You're sober and quiet; I'm theatrical. I like the middle of the stage; I want colour, movement, and the leading part. It's plain that we would jar."
Kit frowned. He saw Olivia was firm, and saw, rather vaguely, that her firmness was wise. In a sense, she was theatrical. Red geraniums, oleanders and scented orange flowers were her proper background. Olivia belonged to the South. Perhaps it was strange, but he pictured Betty in her neat, cool office. Betty wore white clothes, sometimes with a touch of the soft virgin blue. She stood for the reserve and staunchness of the bracing North. But he had asked Olivia to marry him.
"If you were persuaded we would jar——" he said and stopped.
Olivia smiled, but her smile was kind. "You are trying to be nice, but you want to know why I let you go on? Well, you were a new type. You were fresh and sincere, and sometimes very obstinate. The others indulged me; you did not. You had qualities I liked; perhaps because they were not mine. Then romance called and sometimes I began to think I might take the plunge, but I hesitated. I valued all I must give up and I have not your pluck——"
She paused and gave Kit a quiet glance. "Well, I'm sorry, but you ought to be grateful I was not rash. Although you're a very good sort, you are not my sort. I could not use your rules, and you would not use mine. You must let me go and marry somebody brave and honest——"