“I admit that I would rather tell you nothing just now,” she said, gratefully. “You are sure you will never say again that you don’t understand me?”
“Quite sure,” said Gavin, bravely. “And by-and-by you will offer to tell me of your free will?”
“Oh, don’t let us think of the future,” answered Babbie. “Let us be happy for the moment.”
This had been the Egyptian’s philosophy always, but it was ill-suited for Auld Licht ministers, as one of them was presently to discover.
“I want to make one confession, though,” Babbie continued, almost reluctantly. “When you were so nasty a little while ago, I didn’t go back to Nanny’s. I stood watching you from behind a tree, and then, for an excuse to come back, I—I poured out the water. Yes, and I told you another lie. I really came back to admit that it was all my fault, if I could not get you to say that it was yours. I am so glad you gave in first.”
She was very near him, and the tears had not yet dried on her eyes. They were laughing eyes, eyes in 175 distress, imploring eyes. Her pale face, smiling, sad, dimpled, yet entreating forgiveness, was the one prominent thing in the world to him just then. He wanted to kiss her. He would have done it as soon as her eyes rested on his, but she continued without regarding him—
“How mean that sounds! Oh, if I were a man I should wish to be everything that I am not, and nothing that I am. I should scorn to be a liar, I should choose to be open in all things, I should try to fight the world honestly. But I am only a woman, and so—well, that is the kind of man I should like to marry.”
“A minister may be all these things,” said Gavin, breathlessly.
“The man I could love,” Babbie went on, not heeding him, almost forgetting that he was there, “must not spend his days in idleness as the men I know do.”
“I do not.”