He did not laugh. He spoke with a sudden intensity. “They, too, are worth a million ... more than that ... only I’ll share them with you. I wouldn’t share them with any one else.”
At the sound of his voice, a silly wave of happiness swept through Olivia. She thought, “I’m being young and ridiculous and enjoying myself.”
Aloud she said, “I haven’t a penny, but if you’ll trust me until to-morrow?”
And then he turned to her abruptly, the shyness gone and in its place an emotion close to irritation and anger. “Why buy them?” he asked. “You know well enough what they are. You haven’t forgotten what I told you on the terrace at Brook Cottage.... It’s grown more true every day ... all of it.” When he saw that she had become suddenly grave, he said, “And what about you?”
“You know how impossible it is.”
“Nothing is impossible ... nothing. Besides, I don’t mean the difficulties. Those will come later.... I only mean your own feelings.”
“Can’t you see that I like you?... I must like you else I wouldn’t have come alone this morning.”
“Like me,” he echoed with bitterness. “I’m not interested in having you like me!” And when she made no reply, he added, almost savagely, “Why do you keep me away from you? Why do you always put a little wall about yourself?”
“Do I?” she asked, stupidly, and with a sense of pain.
“You are cool and remote even when you laugh.”