Barbara's color came and went, but she said quietly: "When you came to the hotel in the evening you met Shillito!"
"I did," said Lister, with incautious passion. "If I had killed the brute I'd have been justified! However, I threw him on to the aloe tub and ran off. The thing was grotesquely humorous. A boy's fool trick!"
"You ran off for my sake," said Barbara. "I liked you for it. I like you for many things, but I will not marry you."
He saw she was resolute. Her mouth was firm and her hand was tightly closed. He thought he knew the grounds for her refusal, and his heart sank. Barbara was stubborn and very proud. Moreover, the situation was awkward, but the awkwardness must be fronted.
"Let's be frank; perhaps you owe me this," he urged. "Since you allow you do like me, what's to stop our marrying?"
"For one thing, my adventure in Canada," she replied and turned her head.
Lister put his hand on her arm and forced her to look up. "Now you're clean ridiculous! Shillito cheated you; he's a plausible wastrel, but you found him out. It doesn't count at all! Besides, nobody but your relations know."
"You know," said Barbara, and, getting up started along the mole.
Lister tried to brace himself, for he saw she could not be moved. Yet there was something to be said.
"You are the girl I mean to marry," he declared. "Some day, perhaps, you'll see you're indulging a blamed extravagant illusion and I'm going to wait. When you're logical I'll try again."