Agatha broke into a little, high-strung laugh that was near to weeping.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “aren’t you taking too much for granted? Am I really to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you suppose I would marry you—for your possessions?”
“My proposition does sound cold-blooded. Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn’t always find me so practical and calculating. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose between Gregory and me. In that case he must hold his own if he can.”
“Against what you have offered me?” she flung the question at him.
He looked at her with his face set.
“I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It’s the most pressing difficulty.”
The resentment was still in the girl’s eyes.
“So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only difficulty. Oh, do you imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have made it, would lead anyone to love you?”
Wyllard spoke with a new tenderness. “When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have lost your repose and I love you better as you are. There is one thing, Agatha, that I must ask again, and it’s your duty to tell me. Are you fonder of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?”
Agatha’s eyes fell. She felt that she could not look at him nor could she answer his question honestly as she desired to answer it.