"What reason have you for saying that?"
"Hundreds," replied Bob. "That is—you see, you are always laughing at my desire to be 'a fusty bookworm,' as you call it, and—and, well, all that sort of thing."
"Does that prove indifference?" she replied, and Bob thought he noted a tremor in her voice.
"You know it does," he went on, hating himself for talking in such a fashion, and yet unable to control his words. "Only yesterday, when we were talking together at tea, and some one said that I should die an old bachelor, you said that I was far more likely to die an old maid. Then, although you saw you wounded me, you went off with Captain Trevanion."
"Hadn't you, just before, refused to stay the evening, although I went out of my way to persuade you? And you gave as your excuse that you had some reading to do. As though your—your books——"
"Did you want me to stay?" asked Bob eagerly. "Nancy—did you really care?"
The girl did not speak, but turned her eyes toward the great heaving sea.
Robert's heart beat wildly as he looked at her. Never did he love her as he loved her now, never had she seemed so fair to him. It was no wonder he had fallen in love with her, for he knew that, in spite of her love of pleasure, and her sometimes flippant way of talking, she was one of the sweetest, truest girls that ever breathed. Although she might be wilful, and passionate, and sometimes seemed careless whether she gave pain or pleasure, she would give her last farthing to help any one in difficulty.
He had been surprised when she suggested his motoring her to Gurnard's Head that afternoon, little thinking that she did it to atone for what she had said two days before.
"Nancy, did you want me to stay?" he repeated. "If—if I thought you really——"