“Of course I won’t speak if it worries you,” he said contritely enough; “but it is a pity, I think, not to face every situation fairly. And I do so want to face this one.”
She slowed up and thought the matter over carefully. Why shouldn’t he talk if he cared to? The answer was, why, indeed!
“Very well,” she summoned her most casual tones; “face it; only—don’t expect me to help much.”
“Oh,” he broke in quickly, “I’m not so inexperienced as to believe anyone can argue away an emotion. Either you like me—in the way I mean, you know—or you don’t. That’s under neither your control nor mine. Words won’t mend anything there. But words may help to clear up misunderstanding.... You are sure this won’t worry you?”
“Why should it?”
“Quite so,” he agreed grimly; “why should it?... Very well....” But he said nothing more.
She looked up at him quickly.
“Well?” he looked down earnestly.
“You have never been sulky with me,” she explained. “Jawn says you go for weeks without speaking to anyone, and Phœbe said you went perfectly dumb on her porch one afternoon. I was just wondering if it were my turn at last.”
“Oh, no! I don’t feel that way at all! That’s one of the signs that makes me sure that you—you are ... I can’t get hold of the right words, that’s all. And it isn’t that, either. I’ve got the right words, bundles of them! But I’m afraid if I start in to pour them forth at you—if I start to tell you how much I—I—care about you—you’ll take fright and also take this trolley home. So to make sure I’ll wait till it passes. Thank goodness they run only two cars on this line—or is it the same one going frantically back and forth?”