“Aren’t you going to do something?”
He turned his head and looked at her with a piercing sign of resentment upon his face, becoming secretly the more indifferent over his former friend’s fate because of Elinor’s apparent concern for the boy’s welfare.
“Why should I do anything?” he snapped.
His words gave her new spirit and she stepped before him, blocking his path as her words bristled with anger. “So that’s the extent of your friendship, after all he tried to do for you?” she cried. “Panama, you’re the blindest of the blind! Lefty is the sweetest boy in all the world—and I love him!”
“Elinor!” the man protested in an effort to save himself from further wounds directed at his heart.
“Yes, I love him, more than all the world and with all my heart,” she confessed, unmindful of the interruption. “I know that he was meant for me and I for him the very first moment my eyes fell upon his. I’ve been living in despair, torturing myself for months now, believing that he didn’t care for me. Do you know why he shielded himself behind that indifferent attitude?”
“No, and I ain’t much interested!” Panama barked.
“Well, you should be! He pretended that he didn’t love me because he thought that I belonged to you, because he was too fair, too decent to rob another man of something that he valued himself more than life. I’ve never loved you, I’ve never belonged to you! Lefty had as much right to try and win my love as you did!”
“Elinor, please—I don’t want to listen!” the love-torn soldier beseeched vainly.
“You must listen and you will!” she cried with determination. “Oh, Panama, can’t you see it all now? The whole thing was my fault! I shouldn’t have let you care when I knew that I could never love you, but you seemed so fine—so good that I dreaded to hurt you. Upon my honor, I swear that Lefty, never in his life, has made love to me—I made love to him!”