"I hope," he cried, "that you are not getting to be one of those exacting creatures who are jealous if a man is not at their side every moment? I could never endure that."
With a sudden impulse, Dorothy threw her arms about his neck and nestled her snow-white cheek against his.
"Let me tell you the truth, Harry," she whispered. "I am trying not to be jealous, as hard as ever I can; but, oh! there seems such a coldness between us lately. My intuition—my heart tells me so. Everything has changed since Iris came," she repeated. "I am glad you have some one to go with you on your rambles, as I used to do—some one to walk and read with you, as I once did. But when I think of it, and picture you two together, and know that she takes the same place by your side that I was wont to take, can you wonder that my heart throbs with a slow, dull pain?"
"Women magnify everything!" cried Kendal, harshly. "I suppose you will begrudge me a moment's comfort where another young girl is concerned, because you can not participate in it."
"I wonder that you can find comfort, as you phrase it, with another," said Dorothy, with a little tremor in her voice. "I have never heard that any other society was satisfying to an engaged lover than that of the sweetheart whom he avers to love."
Kendal laughed a little low, tantalizing laugh which grated keenly on the girl's ears.
"Men differ in their tastes and inclinations," he retorted laconically. "I do not choose to be tied down and governed by one woman's whims, nor to be dictated to."
"You should not speak of it in that way, Harry," whispered the girl in a choking voice; "rather, you should say to yourself that you would not do the slightest thing that might cause me one pang of annoyance. He who truly loves finds no interest, no attraction but in the one face, the one presence. I have known many betrothed young men, and I never yet knew one who paid the girl he loved so little courtesy as to flirt, ever so slightly, with another."
She could not see the flush that burned his face, for he knew that every word she uttered was but too true. He felt guilty in her sweet, innocent presence. Had he but loved her, he would have found no pleasure whatever in Iris Vincent's dangerous coquetries.
He would not have encouraged her by smile, word, or deed.