By a subtle instinct she felt the wave of emotion from his tense mind.
A long silence fell between them. Her last speech had given him the cue for his question. He had brooded over its possible meaning from the moment she had expressed the idea. He picked a pebble from the ground, shot it from his fingers as he had done with marbles when a boy.
Lifting his head with a serious look straight into her brown eyes he said:
“Did you believe for a moment that I could go with you on such a campaign tour?”
She met his gaze squarely.
“I thought it too good to be true, of course, and yet your unexpected sympathy and your—your—shall I say, frankly expressed admiration, led me into all sorts of silly hopes.”
“And yet you knew on a moment’s reflection that such a surrender of principle by a man of my character was out of the question.”
“It has turned out to be so,” she answered slowly.
“Could you have respected me had I cut a complete intellectual and moral somersault merely at the wave of your beautiful hand?”
“I could respect any man who yields to reason,” she fenced.