"I cannot let you—go on—under such a total misapprehension. I could not in a lifetime say how sorry I am for your cruel trouble. It makes me rage; I'd like to—never mind that now! but you are wholly mistaken in thinking that anything of the kind has ever come into my own life. I don't know how you received the impression, but you must believe me when I say I have never had any—any such affair, nor the shadow of one. It isn't my line. I not only never have had, but probably never shall have—" he was hurrying out word upon word, hoping to get it over and done with once and for ever. But letting his eyes drop for an instant to the girl's face, he saw on it a look of such unutterable amazement that he stopped short in his headlong speech.
They gazed at each other from alien worlds. At length—"Doctor Strong," said Vesta, and the words dropped slowly, one by one, "what do you mean?"
Geoffrey was silent. If she did not know what he meant, he certainly did not.
"What do you mean?" she repeated. "I do not understand one word of what you are saying."
Geoffrey tried hard to keep his temper. "You were speaking of your—disappointment," he said, stiffly. "You seemed to take it for granted that I—was engaged in some affair of a similar nature, and I felt bound to undeceive you. I have never been what is called in love in my life."
The bewilderment lingered in Vesta's eyes for an instant; then a light came into them. The sunset rushed in one crimson wave over face and neck and brow; she fell back on her pillows, quivering from head to foot. Was she going to cry again?
She was laughing! silently at first, trying hard to control herself; but now her laughter broke forth in spite of her, and peal after peal rang out, wild and sweet, helpless in its intensity.
Geoffrey sat paralysed a moment; then the professional instinct awoke.
"Hysteria! another manifestation, that is all. I must stop it."
He leaned forward.
"Miss Blyth!"