‘How can you speak to me in that manner? As if I had no strength of will—as if I were an idiot.’
‘Not at all; but as if you were, what you are—a woman, and a good one,’ he replied. Then, before she could answer, he went on: ‘But I think you want to shirk my question, Miss Bolton. You are afraid to look your position fairly in the face.’
‘I don’t see it.’
‘You have not told me what you would do in case the man you married refused, or was unable to see, John Leyburn in the pure white light of brotherhood.’
‘I don’t see the use of discussing such wildly improbable contingencies. But’—she suddenly burst into a laugh—‘if the worst came to the worst, I should have to sink John to the rank of a friend and cousin. He would have to—well, he would have to manage as well as he could. But you are very unkind to shatter my little day-dream in that way—so wantonly, too! You are the first person who ever cared to shake me out of my pleasant delusion. I have always looked upon John as a brother.’
‘Very pleasant for him, as I think I observed before.’
‘Why only for him, pray? I owe far more to him than he owes to me. He has made me better and wiser than I ever should have been without him; not that I am much to boast of in the matter either of wisdom or goodness; but most of what little I have I owe to John. And then, he is almost my only friend.’
‘Perhaps that is a matter in which I may find cause for rejoicing?’
‘You!’ echoed Nita, turning suddenly to him, and finding his sombre eyes fixed upon her face. She turned her own quickly away again. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, a little confusedly.
‘Yes, I; even I. If you had had many friends and many claims upon your time and your attention, would you have had leisure to do all the kind things you have performed for me in the short time since I came here?—to think all the kind thoughts which I know you have thought? Should I have been able to endure being under your father’s roof if I had found you engrossed with others—looking upon me as an alien and an interloper, instead of treating me as you have done? It would have maddened me, I think. No; do not try to deny your own goodness. I have felt it every hour since I met you; and to one in my position, every kind thought and gentle action on the part of others is as another bead added to one’s string of pearls.’