"Yes, I could tell you that, but it would be a very improper thing, under the circumstances, provided I was able to give you the answer you seem to wish. If I did care for you, would I like to say so in definite words when anything further might turn out to be impossible? A girl would not wish to have a man that she was never to marry going about with the recollection that she said, 'I love you.'"
"Then you can say nothing at all?" he asked sadly. "Shall I be uncertain whether at the end of my term in purgatory I am to be raised to a state of bliss or dashed into the Inferno?"
She laughed; a delicious little laugh.
"You are getting hyperbolical," she answered. "There are ten thousand better women than I."
"But I don't want them," pleaded the young man. "Did you ever read the lines of Jean Ingelow:
"'Oh so many, many, many
Maids and yet my heart undone.
What to me are all or any?
I have lost—my—one.'"
Daisy replied that the sentiment was very sweet, and added that when a lover could quote such admirable poetry with accuracy, there was hope for him. Do what he would, Roseleaf could not make her see that everything in his future life depended on "one little word" from her. She persisted that he was misled by the violence of his first affection, and that if he would only let a month or two pass he would discover that his pulse would fall off a number of beats to the minute.
"And is that what you want?" he asked, reproachfully. "Would you like to have me come back two months later, and tell you my love had ceased?"
"Yes, if it was the truth. How much better than to learn it after my vows had been pledged and I was bound to you for the rest of my days!"
He rose and went with quick steps to her side, catching up her hand and covering it with kisses. She did her best to stop him, whispering, with a glance toward the door, that they might be interrupted at any minute.