"I—do—not know—you—as you—are now," she said firmly.
"It is not I who am changed, Joyce, it is you. Everything is just the same except that I see you are more—wonderful than I dreamed."
"Nothing is going to be the same again. I knew it while Mr. Drew was talking the other day—I have thought it all out since."
"Curse him!" Gaston broke in; "what did he say? Why did you go to him Joyce? How could you?"
There was pain in the words—pain and a dumb fear.
"It only happened to be Mr. Drew. Some one would have made me know in time."
"Joyce;" he was actually pleading with her! The knowledge burnt into the quickening soul. "Joyce, what did you trust in me, before you went to Drew?"
"Your goodness—your—unselfishness. I knew the goodness—I have only begun to see the—unselfishness."
"My unselfishness? Good heavens!" In spite of the strangeness of it all, Gaston laughed. Then an impatience stifled him. A brute instinct drove him on. Her beauty had captured his senses, and he meant to tear down the pitiful wall he had upbuilded between her and him, and force her to see the inevitable.
He had wondered if she could stir him—well he knew now. What idiots they had both been!