“There,” he gravely replied, “little enough can be discussed. It has to do with things that you would have limited patience with, strictly an affair of business. I was referring to your susceptibility of heart, a charming female quality.”
He bowed stiffly. Gisela came nearer to him, a sudden emotion trembling on her features.
“Why don't you end it?” she cried, low and distressed. “It has gone on a long while now—the bitterness between you; I am certain in his heart father is weary of it, and you are younger——”
She broke off before the tightening of his lips. “Not a topic to be developed here,” he insisted. He had no intention, Alexander Hulings thought, of being bent about even so charming a finger. And it was well to establish at once the manner in which any future they might share should be conducted. He wanted a wife, not an intrigante nor Amazon. Her feeling, color, rapidly evaporated, and left her pallid, confused, before his calm demeanor. She turned her head away, her face lost in the bonnet, but slowly her gaze returned to meet his keen inquiry. His impulse was to ask her, then, at once, to marry him; but he restrained that headlong course, feeling that it would startle her into flight. As it was, she moved slowly toward the door.
“I am to meet a friend on the Western packet,” she explained; “I thought I heard the horn.”
“It was only freight,” he replied. “I should be sorry to lose this short opportunity to pay you my respects; to tell you that you have been a lot in my thoughts lately. I envy the men who see you casually, whenever they choose.”
She gazed at him with palpable surprise gathering in her widely opened eyes. “But,” she said breathlessly, “everybody knows that you never address a polite syllable to a woman. It is more speculated on than any of your other traits.”
He expanded at this indication of a widespread discussion of his qualities.
“I have had no time for merely polite speeches,” he responded. “And I assure you that I am not only complimentary now; I mean that I am not saluting you with vapid elegance. I am awaiting only a more fitting occasion to speak further.”
She circled him slowly, with a minute whispering of crinoline, her gaze never leaving his face. Her muslin, below her white, bare throat, circled by a black velvet band, was heaving. The parasol fell with a clatter. He stooped immediately; but she was before him and snatched it up, with crimson cheeks.